


The Road to Hell is Paved with Good Intentions

by Dangerousnotbroken



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, F/M, References to Destiel but not really, Witchcraft, sorta - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-08-23
Updated: 2014-08-29
Packaged: 2018-02-14 09:57:48
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 22,813
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2187462
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Dangerousnotbroken/pseuds/Dangerousnotbroken
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>On a rather unusual witch hunt, Sam and Dean encounter an angry young woman, and a lot more questions than answers.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Something Wicked This Way Comes

Dean drew his gun, checking a third time to make sure the safety was off, and that there was a bullet in the breech. He could hear Sam breathing quietly a few paces behind him, but he still needed to stamp down the urge to turn around and make sure his brother was still there. Old habits die hard. He could smell incense wafting down the corridor, and it was getting stronger, so they must be getting closer. The sub-basement of this abandoned apartment building was old enough that that there was a thick layer of dust on every surface. The floor, though, showed signs of traffic, a sure sign that something shady was going on down here, because no other reason existed for someone to have disturbed decades of disuse. They crept slowly, weapons at the ready, trying to make no sound that would reveal their presence, and as they reached the end of the corridor, Dean drew up short. He motioned Sam to stop as well. They stood silent, listening to the faint echoes of chanting that resounded off the cavernous walls. Dean wanted to crane his neck around the corner, see what they were looking at, but he hesitated. If someone was looking this way, it would already be too late by the time he counted the witches. The original plan was to go in guns blazing, shoot first and count corpses later. Much better than letting things get out of hand and having to pull their asses out of the fire.

            It would be much easier if Castiel had been around to help on this hunt. Now that the trench-coat clad angel had his mojo back, he was worth his weight in gold when it came to cases like this. Lately though, he’d been disappearing more frequently, and for longer durations. With fewer explanations. Dean hadn’t even gotten the chance to ask for help on this one. They hadn’t seen the angel in months. With a shake of his head, Dean drew himself back to the present. Cas was a big boy. He could take care of himself. He turned now to look at Sammy. Their eyes met, and there was silent consensus that the time for action had come. Sam cocked his shotgun.

            In the frenzied seconds before all hell broke loose, Dean surveyed the room. There were five witches scattered throughout the dusty sub-basement. Bits of broken furniture and crates littered the floor. The witches all seemed to look up as one, their eyes full of a collective rage. The one in the center was likely in charge. She drew herself up with an air of command when the brothers let their presence be known. The tone of the chanting shifted then. Before they’d entered the room, all five of the women had been contributing something to the ominous cacophony, but now it was just the one, as the other four focused their attention on the intruders. Dean took aim and fired at the nearest, a younger woman, her plain features distorted in a snarl of rage. The first bullet took her in the shoulder, and she lurched in pain as he fired again, this time taking her in the head. She went down in a heap, and Dean was pleased to find that these bitches still died like people. The research they’d done hadn’t turned up much information. These weren’t the same kind of witches they’d encountered before, and Sam had been worried they had ceased to be truly human and become something a bit harder to kill. It was good when Sammy was occasionally wrong. Sam’s first shotgun blast had taken off half the face of the witch he aimed at. That left three. The big bad mama witch was still in the center of the room where she’d stood when they entered, chanting her creepy verses and staring off into space. Dean spared her a small glance, just to check the threat level, before turning his weapon on the frankly stunning woman lurching towards him. There was something vicious in the way she glared at him. It was unnerving. Dean wasted no time in firing off three quick rounds in to her chest. She fell backwards, a strangled cry escaping her lips, as she bled dark and sticky down the front of her faded grey dress. The fourth witch should be right on top of Sammy by now. He hadn’t heard another shotgun blast. Sam turned his attention to his brother, but the witch was not on the offensive. Confused, Dean spun back on the chanting wretch at the center of the room, and cursed himself for not taking her out sooner. She was no longer staring blankly. Her eyes were now fixed on Dean, malice and ill intent radiating from her so strongly that Dean was surprised it wasn’t visible. She spat the last words of her spell, raising a hand towards him in a decidedly unfriendly gesture, and he had only barely enough time to dive out of the way before something unholy radiated from her outstretched hand and struck the mirror directly behind where he’d been standing only moments before.

            “DEAN!” he heard his brother cry, distantly, before he felt something strike him in the back, like being zapped with a taser. His entire body jolted, and he expected his limbs to tense and stop responding, because hey, he’d been hit with one of those before, and it sucked. But instead of the crippling immobility, the surge passed through him and was gone. Not one to overanalyze, Dean leapt up from the floor where he’d fallen, retrieved his weapon, and sought a target. These bitches were going down. He spotted the mama witch, still dead center of the room, and chanting again like it was going out of style, but before he could take aim, something came flying out of the corridor they’d entered through and took her in the leg. She crumpled, her chanting interrupted for the moment, and Dean turned a startled gaze on the assailant. She was already springing back in to action. The new arrival held a knife in each hand. Likely, it was an identical match to the one that had taken the witch in the thigh moments before. She was small, lithely built, her frame hidden somewhat by a leather bomber jacket, and she leapt through the air like flying, with a ferocity that Dean would have admired if he had time to think about it.

“What the fuck was that?” Sam shouted, swinging his rifle around in search of the other target. He found her, fleeing on foot towards the back of the room. Sam fired, wincing slightly at the yelp his target let out. She was down, and she’d bleed out pretty fast if she wasn’t dead already, but the girl clearly wasn’t convinced. She crossed the room quickly, grabbed a handful of the witch’s hair, and coldly slit her throat. Dean wasn’t entirely certain if he should be creeped out or impressed. The girl wiped her blade off on the dead witch’s dress, and fixed the boys with an absolutely terrifying stare as she slowly, gracefully, picked her way through the debris back to the center of the room. She reached the witch just as she finished chanting something, narrowing her eyes and drawing something small and unseen out of the pocket of her shapeless dress. Before anyone could react, the witch tossed whatever it was to the ground, and in a blinding flash of light, and was gone from sight. The light was like energy made animate, and it threw the girl backwards. She landed heavily, limbs bouncing off debris.

“Ok someone wanna tell me what just happened here?” Sam complained as he made his way toward the unconscious girl. “you gonna help me carry her to the car or not?”

 

            Before the sun set that evening, the brothers Winchester found themselves safely back in the bunker. Dean had been in favour of the version of the story where they left the crazy girl with the knives in the witches den and hightailed it back to Lebanon without a backwards glance. Sam insisted they take her back with them.

            “She could be possessed,” he’d argued. “Or a shifter. Or a witch. Or any number of other unpleasant things. We need to know what she was doing crashing our hunt!” Dean couldn’t argue with that logic. Well, he could, but he wasn’t interested in making the effort. So, as twilight gave way to a cloudless starry night, they sat in the dungeon of the bunker, watching an unconscious bottle-blonde, who was showing considerable re-growth of her natural colour at the roots, Sam noticed, and formulating a plan. The boys were still trying to decide how to handle their unexpected house guest when she groaned sleepily and opened her eyes. She made as if to stand, and raged as she realized she was bound to the straight backed wooden chair.

            “What is wrong with you assholes??!” She bellowed, jerking against

the ropes and snarling in a very unladylike manner. The tattoos that covered both of her arms twisted and warped as she flexed, straining her muscles against the restraints. Sam regarded her like he would a caged tiger, warily, unsure how far to trust her aggression. Dean, on the other hand, appeared amused.

            “Well princess,” he began, glib and sarcastic as always, patting her roughly on the knee. “You appear to have tracked us pretty well, and I’m not super comfortable with that. You’re staying put ‘til we get some answers. Start talking and maybe we’ll see about early release for good behaviour.” She stared at him flatly.

            “You’re pissed at me ‘cause you think you left a trail? God, you _are_ dumb. I wasn’t tracking you, I was hunting those witches. I could not possibly care less what you assholes are doing.” She gave her bonds another tug, clearly not resigned to the futility. She threw her head back in frustration, noticing for the first time the devil’s trap painted on the ceiling. “Well perhaps you two aren’t complete idiots after all. That’d keep a fully juiced demon cooling its heels for a damn long time.” She gestured at the ceiling with her chin. “But that doesn’t excuse the fact that YOU let that damn witch get away. She was the one with all the real power; the other four were just fucking cheerleaders! And where the hell is my jacket? If you wrecked up my leather I swear I’m gonna ugly both of you up somethin’ fierce.” Sam and Dean shared a look.

            “You’re not really in position to be making any threats there, sweetheart. You expect me to believe that you just _happened_ to be on the trail of the same den of witches we were hunting, and you just _happened_ to show up at the same time we did? That seems like a big piece of coincidence to me.” Dean dragged his own chair in front of the girl, turning it backwards and draping himself over the ladder-back as he fixed her with an icy stare. “I think you’re hiding something, and I think you’re gonna hang out here until you tell us a nice little bedtime story.” Dean was full on bluffing. They had nothing on this girl, but Sam was convinced they had reason to be wary, so he played along. Sam chose this moment to pull out a vial of holy water.

            “Oh thanks, sasquatch, but I’m not really in the habit of taking drinks from men I just met. Tell you what; the grown-ups are trying to have a conversation here. Why don’t you go braid your hair and leave me and short-round here to have a nice lil chat?” The girl’s arrogant bluster mimicked the behaviour Dean had displayed so many times in scenarios like this one. Cocky and dickish, annoying and sarcastic, never let them see you flinch. Her shoulders slumped as she sighed impatiently, causing the strap of her tank-top to slide down her arm.

            “Sammy, look,” Dean gestured at the now exposed patch of skin. She bore a tattoo that was identical to his and Sam’s, right down to the placement. “Well don’t that just beat all? Guess you’re not gonna go all black-eyes on us after all.”

            “Yeah, no shit. What more do you want? I don’t exactly have an up-to-date Hunters Club of America membership on me right now, but considering we’ve established I’m not a demon, and I already saved your pansy asses from a psychotic witch, do you think perhaps we could stop playing bad cop/bad cop for five minutes and get me out of this….Is this a fucking dungeon? You have a dungeon? What kind of freaks are you?”

            “Yeah um, you would not believe how frequently a demon proof basement becomes relevant. Don’t underestimate the real-estate value of a properly constructed devils trap,” Sam smirked as he hesitantly untied the ropes binding her hands.

            “Saved our asses?” Dean sputtered. “ _Saved our asses???_ I don’t know what show you were watching blondie, but you cost us that hunt. I would have had a clear shot at the wicked bitch of the west if you hadn’t shown up all crazy eyes, throwin’ knives and jumping around like a friggin’ circus monkey. This is your fault.”

            “Bitch please,” she laughed, as she untied the last knot binding her feet and stepped away from the chair. “You can’t get a clear shot at that range because someone else is also trying to kill what you’re trying to kill? Sounds to me like you’ve got a focus problem. My advice? Go get yourself laid. Maybe next time a girl shows up on your hunt you won’t be too distracted by boobs to make an easy kill.” Sam stifled a laugh, earning a cutting look from his older brother.

            “Sam can I kill her? Please can I kill her?” he rolled his eyes and stalked out of the room, leaving Sam to deal with the mouthy blonde.

            “Your partner is an asshole, Sam,” the girl barked, loudly enough that it was obvious she meant it for Dean’s ears.

            “He’s uh…he’s a nice enough guy when you get to know him. No actually, I take that back. He’s a total asshole. But he’s my brother, so I kinda have to put up with it. Listen, you’re gonna need to stay here with us for a little while. That witch’s whammy did a number on you, and to be entirely honest, I don’t really think I trust you enough to let you know where we’re holed up at the moment.”

            “That sounds like just _heaps_ of fun, but that witch is still out there and I’m gonna have to take a pass. But hey, maybe _after_ I do my actual job, we can have a slumber party.” She strode out of the room without so much as another word. Sam ran after her, but his concern about her escape was unwarranted. She’d barely made it ten feet down the hallway before collapsing. She grimaced, pushing herself up on to hands and knees. “Yeah ok fair. I might need a bit of a nap.”

 

            Sam set her up in one of the many unoccupied bedrooms in the bunker. They were all basically the same, so he picked the one with the least debris, (there were boxes and abandoned luggage in almost every one), handed her a stack of bedding, and headed to the kitchen to grab himself a beer. He found Dean in the map room, already on his second beer, several books on witchcraft from the Men of Letters’ library spread out in front of him, but not really paying attention.

            “How’s our little houseguest?” he asked, disinterested. Dean took another long swig of his beer.

            “Well, she thinks you’re a big bag of dicks, and she made it half way out of the dungeon before she basically passed out, but at least she’s not trying to bolt, so that’s something. She’s gonna be laid up for at least a few days. I don’t know what that magic smoke grenade did to her, but she’s pretty weak.” Sam sank into a chair opposite his brother and pulled a book out of the stack.

            “Yeah well, I’d just as soon be rid of her, but now we know she’s not possessed, I guess we can’t give her the boot until we’re sure she’s not gonna bite it. But I don’t like it. I still say we should have left her in that damn basement.”

            “You’re such a fucking humanitarian. Honestly. You should be nominated for Sainthood. Call Cas. I bet he’s got an in with the selection committee.” Sam’s voice dripped with sarcasm.

            “Look, cram it, ok? Let’s just figure out what kind of mojo these crazy bitches were workin, gank their crown princess, and rid ourselves of the cranky third wheel. Did you catch any of the spell work?” Dean ignored the mention of the absent angel. Sure, he _could_ call Cas if he needed to, but this was just a witch. It didn’t call for angel intervention.

            “Yeah um, a few words. Enough to know I didn’t recognize the language. I’ll have to dig in to it a bit, but I’m not sure what I’ll come up with.”

            “Ok well, since Miss Congeniality was apparently on the trail of these same broads before she messed up our hunt, maybe she knows something. When she’s conscious, you find out what she knows. I want this hunt done.” Dean slammed his book shut then, dragging the legs of his chair backwards across the stone floor as he stood.

            “Where the hell are you going? And why can’t you talk to her? If you’re gonna bail on research you’re gonna have to pick up the slack somewhere.” Sam finished his beer and shot his brother a patented bitch-face.

            “Oh I’d love to Sammy, but she thinks I’m a big ol’ bag of dicks, remember? She’s not gonna talk to me. See ya in the morning!”

 

            Sam was still at the table, attempting to figure out what language the witch had been speaking, when morning rolled around. He pushed a lock of hair out his face and yawned, stretching long arms over his head and working the kink out his neck. Sam had just returned his attention to the book in front of him, some centuries old leather bound volume on the different dialects of Sumerian, when he heard footsteps behind him. He found the blonde hunter shuffling in to the room, rubbing her eyes lazily. She’d pulled her hair into a messy braid, but she was otherwise dressed as she had been the night before.

            “Morning. You slept in your jeans?”

            “My bag’s in my car. Which is parked outside that old apartment building. Which is in Enid. And I’m guessing that’s not exactly walking distance. I slept in what I got.” Sam felt a small pang of guilt, but he wasn’t about to volunteer a road trip at this exact moment. He’d wait until Dean got up and then they could talk strategy.

            “Fair. Well I think Charlie left a few things here, might have some sweatpants that’ll fit you or something. Coffee?” Sam offered. He fetched her a mug, and sat back down at the table. He intended to take her through what they had on the witches so far, which, admittedly, was pretty close to nothing, but Dean chose that moment to crawl out of hibernation.

            “Oh good, the princess awakens,” she murmured into her coffee mug.

            “Nice to see you too, bitch.” Dean growled, and made a beeline for the coffee maker. He poured his own mug, and threw himself in to a chair beside Sam.

            “It’s Danielle, ass. If you’re going to keep me here against my will you can at least call me by my damn name.” Dean just stared at her until Sam kicked him under the table.

            “Dean,” he offered grudgingly.

            “You gotta be shitting me,” Danielle laughed. “Sam and Dean? You’re the fucking Winchesters. Well that’s just freakin thrilling. I’m in the presence of goddamned hunter royalty.” The sarcasm was clear in her voice. Sam eyed her questioningly. “Never meet your heroes, boys. I tell ya, it’s always a disappointment.”

            “You hear that Sammy, we’re famous!” Dean grinned mockingly, then let it slide back into a flat stare.

            “Oh come on, everyone’s heard of you assholes. You always seem to show up where the fire’s the hottest, and I’m pretty sure you’ve got like ten death certificates between the two of you. I woulda chalked it up to urban legend, ‘cept I’ve met a hunter or two you actually worked with in past. I gotta say, your reputation is a bit more glossy than reality. I never would have expected the legendary Brothers Winchester to dick up a witch hunt like that.” She tucked a loose strand of hair behind her hair and drank deeply from her coffee. Sam rolled his eyes. Dean always picked terrible moments to be antagonistic, and he knew he needed to redirect the conversation before it got out of control.

            “So….witches?” He interjected loudly. “Danielle, you said you’d been tracking the same coven. What do you know about them? That definitely wasn’t Latin they were chanting. I know this isn’t anything we’ve dealt with before.” The annoyed look on her face altered a bit when the conversation shifted back to business.

            “I don’t know much more than you do, I suspect. Tracked them here from a series of suspicious deaths over the last couple of months. Didn’t’ seem to be any connection at first. Different cause of death on each vic, different parts of town, no overlap in social circles. But each time, the vic was home, alone, in a house locked from the inside. When I started digging deeper, I found that all the plants on the west-facing side of the homes there were killed in were dead. Every plant withered and died, like something just sucked the life out of them. I’ve never seen that with witchcraft before. Super weird, right?” Danielle’s eyes were alight with passion as she delved into the path that led them to meet in that basement. Her research was rather similar to their own, Sam noted. As they’d dug deeper in to the victims, they’d come up short. Each and every single one of them was squeaky clean, a pillar of society. The PTA president had been first to go—She’d been noted in the community for her philanthropic efforts, and none of the hunters had been able to dig up even a vague suggestion of wrong doing. The woman was a fucking saint, in Dean’s words. Next had been the high school’s valedictorian, a straight-A student, member of the student council, religious but not preachy, the saving herself for marriage and actually meaning it kind. Then a cop who’d been honoured recently for his work rooting out corruption on the force, an animal rights activist, and a dude who’d been paralyzed from the waist down saving some kid from a sexual assault 5 years back. Its like these witches were targeting the nicest people in the whole town. Obviously, the kind of people you’d want to kill, if you were evil and just picking targets, but Dean thought there had to be some more reason to it. Killing folks drew attention. He was sure there was a pattern. But as they kept looking in to the vics, and in to the magic, they’d failed to come up with anything that gave them any concrete leads on what the witches were aiming at. Danielle had tracked the witches to the abandoned building through a rezoning application that, despite any real public opposition, had been repeatedly shot down. The building had been condemned for years, slated for demolition as soon as the permits could be granted, but the developers kept coming up against an invisible wall of bureaucracy that she couldn’t find a paper trail for, and that had made her suspicious.

            “That’s some impressive detective work,” Sam offered. “We only found the place when we saw one of the witches duckin’ in here by chance.”

            “By chance,” Dean scoffed. “Good old fashioned gut-instinct more like. I knew we’d find ‘em if we kept our eyes peeled.”

            “Whatever.” Danielle shot back at him. “Now that she knows we’re after her, the surviving witch won’t go back to that basement. She’ll hole up somewhere else. Which means we are right back to fucking square one, and if she’s working some big messy endgame, there’s not going to be time for red tape to point her out this time.” She stood up abruptly. “fuck this. I’m not strategizing on an empty stomach. I’m making pancakes.”

 

            Dean grumbled a begrudged “thank you” in to his coffee as, half an hour later, Danielle dropped a plate piled high with fluffy golden pancakes and crispy bacon in front of him. He dug in with gusto. Sam tucked in to his slightly more modest portion, but his attention was mostly on the books beside his plate.       

            “If I can figure out what language that witch was chanting in, maybe I can start to figure out what they were angling at,” he offered between bites. The girl made some pretty good pancakes.

            “Super. And then after breakfast, one of you can take me back to my car.”

            “Um no. You are not leaving here yet. I still don’t trust you, so I’m sure as hell not letting you off leash to lead anyone back to our little hidey-hole. Aside from which, you nearly died last night. You’re not exactly ready for a solo mission.” Dean made his explanation sound incredibly pragmatic, but he was feeling a bit compassionate after the delicious breakfast, and he had to admit they could use a spare pair of eyes on this one.

            “And if I’m gonna stay here and work this case with you, I’m going to need more than the clothes on my back. I have weapons in my car. And clean clothes. And my laptop. You want to go all dynamic trio on this one, you need to take me back to the batmobile.”

            “You drive a batmobile?” Dean was incredulous.

            “No, you asshole, I drive a ‘78 Camaro. Why would I hunt in a batmobile? That wouldn’t exactly be inconspicuous. But I still need my car.”

 

            While Dean conceded the validity of Danielle’s argument, he was still not comfortable with the idea of the relative stranger knowing where the bunker was located.

            “We’ll take you to your car,” he’d agreed. “But you wear a blindfold until we’re clear of our home base, and Sam drives your car back. You get the blindfold again when you’re close.”

            “Whatever,” Danielle rolled her eyes, but she went along with it. They piled in to the Impala, Sam in the back seat, Danielle in the front. This way, she couldn’t lift the blindfold without one of them noticing the movement. The ride was fairly silent for the first half hour, save for the Zeppelin tape blaring through the speakers. As the final bars of “Kashmir” faded to silence, Dean reached over without a word and tugged the blindfold off her face.

            “I think we’re far enough away now.” He made no further comment, turning his attention back to the road.

            “So how exactly does a girl like you get in to the life? I haven’t encountered a lot of girls who do what we do. Not solo anyway.” Sam piped up from the back seat. The four plus hour drive back to Enid was too long to pass in awkward silence, and he didn’t much relish the idea of reading ancient texts in the back seat of a moving vehicle.

            “A girl like me? Sam Winchester, you don’t know a fucking thing about me,” Danielle turned around to smirk at him. “How do you even know what kind of girl I am?” She laughed at the cringe on his face. “Oh relax, I’m just fucking with you. I got into the life same way anyone else does. Shit went down, and I had no other choice. Hard to live in the mundane when you know what’s out there.” She turned back around to face the windshield again, sighing. “My mom died when I was little. Cops said it was a home invasion gone sideways, but Dad was convinced something more…” she searched for the right word, “Sinister was involved. He ditched me at a family friend’s place, a hunter, and took off to find whatever it was. Probably for the best. Jake raised me like his own, gave me a home, and taught me how to hunt. Didn’t hear from my dad very often. He stopped by once a year or so, mostly passing through on a job, or to get Jake’s help figuring out something evil. Not really to see me. Didn’t’ matter. Jake was more of a father to me than he was. Dad’s dead now, of course. Never did find what killed my mom as far as I know. I’m not even sure there was anything in the first place. Maybe it got him too. Maybe he just got careless. Anyway, soon as I finished school, I started hunting full time. Jake gave me the car as a graduation present. Fixed it up like new. Gorgeous machine. Since then it’s pretty much just been me and the road.” The whole moment seemed a little too chick-flick for Dean, which, fair, she was a chick, but he’d really rather not.

            “So what’s the first hunt you ever did?” He asked, effectively changing the subject.

            “Vengeful spirit.” Danielle grinned. “This scorned lover deal, dude’s girlfriend cheated on him and he didn’t take it so well, hung himself in his apartment back in the 60’s. His spirit stuck around, going after cheaters in the building. It was a basic salt-and-burn, once I figured out who I was looking for, but man, it was awesome. I was hooked. Makes you feel so….powerful, you know?” Dean did know. He’d begrudge the life pretty much any time he opened his mouth, whether you asked or not, but deep down, he dug it. The conversation settled into a rhythm, a casual game of one-upmanship. Danielle had killed a lot of bad things, they learned. She was a pretty accomplished hunter in her own right.   She’d never ganked a Djinn, and her knowledge of averting apocalypses was obviously limited to the stories she’d heard about the boys’ own exploits, but she was not green, that’s for sure. Danielle was in the middle of a story where she’d almost been killed by a couple of vamps in Houston, when the conversation was interrupted by the gentle rustle of wings.

            “Oh hey Cas,” Sam greeted the angel, as Danielle spun in her seat.

            “Where the fuck did he come from?!” She barked, regarding the trench-coat clad man in the back seat with distrust and confusion.

            “I guess you’ve never met an angel before either, hey?” Dean laughed, amused at how much Castiel’s appearance had put the hunter off her game.

            “Oh,” angel muttered awkwardly. “I didn’t realize you would have company.”

            “Castiel this is Danielle. She’s a hunter. We’re working a case together.” Sam offered by way of introduction.

            “Nice to meet you, Castiel,” Danielle reached an arm into the back seat to shake Cas’s hand. He just stared at her, cocking his head to the side questioningly. “It’s a hand. You shake it. It’s a greeting.” Castiel reached cautiously for her hand,

holding it limply, still obviously uncertain about the gesture. Danielle’s handshake was firm, almost aggressive. “I’m sorry, did you say he was an _angel_?” Dean’s words sunk in belatedly.

            “Oh yeah, wings and smiting, the whole nine yards.” Dean gave her a big grin, like it was the most normal thing in the world. Definitely digging how much this messed with the blonde hunter.

            “And he just shows up in your car, like on a regular basis. And this is normal.”

            “Well not always in the car. But yeah. He just kinda shows up sometimes.” Castiel frowned.

            “You know I always come when you call, Dean.”

            “Yeah but you also just pop up like wherever.”

            “Sorry, is this some kind of lovers’ quarrel? Like do you guys need a minute?” Dean’s eyes fell on Danielle with a withering stare, and it was all Sam could do to stifle his laughter. “What, did I hit a nerve? Too personal? You guys are keeping it on the DL, is that it?”

            “What is a ‘DL’, Dean?” Castiel inquired.

            “Nevermind, Cas. Just nevermind. You know what, Danielle, I think you should just stow it. I’m pretty much done with this conversation. I would love nothing more than to finish this hunt and send you on your merry little way.”  
            “Aw, and here I thought we were gonna be friends,” she winked at him. “So. Angel in a trench coat. I bet you’ve had some fun adventures. Tell me a story.”

            “What are you hunting?” Castiel ignored her and spoke to Sam.

            “Witches. Some branch of magic we don’t know much about. There’s been a string of deaths in Enid that we traced back to them, but one got away. We’re back to the drawing board. Think you could stick around a while and give us a hand? We could use your kind of help, if you could spare a few days.”

            “I believe the Host could spare me, for a short time,” Cas admitted, as they pulled up in front of the abandoned building the witches had been holed up in. Danielle jingled the keys in her pocket, and was out the door the second Dean pulled the Impala to a halt.

            “You coming Sam? Your big brother seems to think I need a babysitter!” She unlocked the trunk and tossed the keys to Sam, as Dean and the angel sped off in the Impala. She unzipped her duffle bag, retrieved a change of clothes, and stripped off the clothes she’d been wearing for the last two days right there on the side of the road. Sam caught a glimpse of tattoos on her arms, across her back, and perhaps more, lower, before his brain registered what was happening and snapped him back to reality.

            “What the hell?” Sam squeaked, covering his eyes.

            “Aw come on, I’m not modest, why should you be? It’s only skin.” She teased as she zipped up her denim cut-offs. “I’ve been wearing the same clothes since yesterday morning. I’m not sitting in the same pants for another long ass drive just because my boobs make you uncomfortable.” Danielle pulled on a faded black t-shirt with the Batman logo and slammed the trunk. She slid in to the passenger seat as Sam turned the engine over, giving a pleased hum at the sound of her car. “Fair warning, you so much as scratch a hubcap on this car, I swear on a stack of bibles you will die bloody.” Her words were brutal, but she grinned as she said it, and kicked her heels up on to the dash.

            Danielle insisted on hitting up a convenience store for soda and Doritos, but before long, they were back on the highway.

            “This is how you roadtrip, Winchester,” she’d stated matter-of factly. Sam obliged, with a long suffering sigh. It was early afternoon, the sun high over head, as Enid shrank in the rear view. Without Dean’s blatant dislike of the hunter, the ride was less tense, and conversation came easier. Sam found Danielle to be clever, quick witted, and fairly entertaining to talk to. She shared his brother’s taste in music, to Sam’s dismay, but at least she was willing to keep the stereo at a lower volume. She popped in a mix-tape that consisted mostly of AC/DC and Def Leppard, and rolled the window down to cool the air.

            “So is your brother always this much of a dick, or should I take this personal?”

            “Um, maybe both? He’s kind of an asshole to everyone, most of the time, but he’s a decent guy.”

            “So I didn’t cross a line with that lovers’ quarrel thing? I felt like that one didn’t go over too well.” Sam just laughed and shoot his head.

            “Yeah I don’t know why he got so pissed at that.   Look I’m sure Dean will come around. But you might wanna stop blaming him for the hunt going south. Stop putting him on the defensive and he’ll warm up.”

            “Yeah whatever. So did you guys really kill a wendigo once?”

%MCEPASTEBIN%


	2. Scotch is a Terrible Therapist

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sam and Dean come up against dead ends while trying to find the surviving member of the Coven, and their unwelcome associate proves difficult to work with.

Meanwhile, Dean was miles closer to Lebanon, with Cas riding shotgun.

            “You know Cas, you can go do your heaven thing and meet us back at the bunker later if you want. There’s not really any work to be done ‘til we get back there.”

            “I appreciate long rides in this car, Dean. It’s a welcome respite from my responsibilities. I will stay.” Castiel smiled, his hands resting on his knees, his rumpled trench-coat and blue suit the same as ever. “This new hunter. She appears to rattle you somewhat.”

            “There’s something off about her, that’s all. She showed up in the middle of a fire-fight with the witches. It’s just too coincidental. And she pisses me off. She’s got a mouth on her, a snarky comment for everything.” Dean glowered.

            “And you are upset because that is usually your territory?”

            “What the hell is that supposed to mean?” Dean shot back.

            “She reminds me of you somewhat. I like her.”

 

Dean and Cas made it back to the bunker about twenty minutes before Sam and Danielle pulled in to the garage. She tossed her blindfold to the ground, grabbing her bag and her laptop from the trunk. The Winchesters and the angel were all in the map room by the time she’d deposited her belongings in her borrowed room. She surmised that Dean and the angel had discussed the case on the drive back from Enid, because he seemed to be up to speed. Not that there was much to be up to speed on. Castiel admitted he wasn’t familiar with any kind of witchcraft that would lead to all the west facing plants dying. He and Sam settled in to try and pull something meaningful out of the few words Sam could recall hearing. From what snippets of their conversation she caught, Castiel spoke nearly every language in existence, so once they could figure out what Sam actually heard, it would be pretty easy to figure out what it meant. Dean passed Danielle a beer as she sat down, his hostility from earlier in the day tempered somewhat, and gestured to a stack of worn volumes.

“This stack is our go-to volumes on witches and spell work in general. We have some more obscure ones in the library if we can’t find anything here.” Danielle tucked her legs under her and settled in to the first book on the stack, skimming for any reference that rang true for their case. She nursed her beer as she read, taking small sips but mostly focusing on the book. Sam and Castiel discussed the linguistics of the witch’s chants quietly at the other end of the table. As Danielle placed a third book in a stack of rejects, she reached for her beer and realized she’d absently finished it. She set the empty down and sighed.

“I’m coming up empty. You guys got any leads?”

“Whole lot of nothing. I’m starving. I say we call dinner break. Sammy?” Sam waved his brother off with one hand, his nose in another linguistic treatise, as Cas poured over Sam’s notes. Sam had only caught a few words, not full sentences, so he was having a difficult time identifying syntax. The translation wasn’t progressing much at all.

“Guess it’s just you and me, kid. Pizza?” Dean gathered his empty bottle and headed for the kitchen. He grabbed a new beer from the fridge and handed it to Danielle.

“Don’t call me kid. I doubt I’m any younger than you, and I’m not about to let you patronize me. I know what I’m doing.” She snatched the beer out of his hand, and Dean threw up his hands defensively.

“Ok ok, I’m sorry! I take it back. Jeez” Dean grabbed a stack of takeout menus off the counter and shuffled through until he found one from a pizza place he liked.

“So are you going to tell me where we are? Is this even Oklahoma anymore?” She leaned against the fridge and twisted the cap off her bottle.

“Nope. You’re not in the club, can’t teach you the secret handshake.”

“Oh there’s a handshake? Do I get a decoder ring? Man, if this is how you guys treat your friends, I’d hate to see what you give your enemies.”

“Well for starters my enemies don’t get beer. They get bullets. But don’t go getting any ideas. You’re a temporary contractor. We finish this job and we part ways.”

“Yeah yeah yeah, I got it. Bros before hoes.” She rolled her eyes. “If I promise to wear my blindfold like a good little prisoner, can I at least come with you to pick up the pizza?”

“What makes you think I’m going anywhere?”

“You won’t even tell me what city your little refuge is in. There’s no way in hell you’re somewhere a delivery driver can find you. We’re probably underground or some shit.. I’ll wear the blindfold the whole way there and back. I just gotta get out of there. Seriously, I need to put some miles between me and those books before I snap.”

 

Dean tied the blindfold around her eyes tightly, but not entirely un-gently, before starting up the Impala and rolling out of the garage.

“This really is a nice car,” Danielle commented, as Dean pulled on to the road towards town. “Did you do the body work yourself?”

“Body work?” Dean repeated.

“Yeah, the side panels are obviously not original. Is this a rebuild? Did you buy it as a junker?”

“It was my dad’s. Got in to a pretty bad accident a few years back, pretty much rebuilt it from the ground up. How could you tell it wasn’t original?”

“There’s just some really subtle differences. Nothing bad, it looks really well done. I just know what to look for. Jake rebuilt cars in his spare time, in between hunts. I know my way around a garage.” Dean nodded, a little bit impressed, although Danielle couldn’t see it. “You got any AC/DC? I’m in the mood for some Thunderstruck.”

“You like AC/DC?”

“Who doesn’t?”

“Well my little brother, for starters. He’s always trying to make me listen to douche-y hipster crap.” He retrieved a cassette from the glove box and slipped it in to the stereo.”

“Well your little brother is entitled to his opinion, but I worry about people who don’t like AC/DC. Its not normal.”

“Tell me about it. That kid’s always been a bit weird.” Dean smirked, and turned up the stereo as the opening chords of Back in Black began.

“This song always makes me think of Iron Man. I feel like this would be Tony Stark’s jam.” Danielle started singing along in a really awful falsetto as the lyrics came in.

“So you’re a comic book nerd too?”

“I dabble, when I’ve got time. You?”

“Nah not really. But I watch the movies. You seen the new Iron Man one? I think it’s the third one?”

“Not yet. I don’t get a lot of downtime. You know the drill. Roll in to town, kill something bad, ride off in to the sunset. Lather Rinse Repeat.” Dean nodded, and then remembered she was still blindfolded.

“Yeah I get that.” He pulled in to the parking lot in front of the pizza place and killed the engine. “I’m gonna run in and grab the pizza. You stay here. And keep the blindfold on.” He warned.

“Yes sir mister Winchester sir,” she replied with mock submission, raising her hand in a comically exaggerated salute..

 

Castiel and Sam were still researching when they returned with the pizzas. Sam accepted the slices Danielle passed him gratefully.

“We’re getting nowhere on this spell work.” He groaned, dropping the book he’d been reading. “I can’t find anything that sounds like what I heard, and I’m honestly not even sure what I think I heard is what she said.”

“Aw cheer up Sammy. We’ll find ‘em. Let’s call it a night. Put the books away, have some beers, go watch a movie. We can start again in the morning. You could use a break.” Sam ran a tired hand through his hair, nodding in agreement.

“If you are through with your investigation for the time being, I believe I will return to heaven and re-join you tomorrow. Call me if you find anything before I return, Dean.” The angel disappeared without a further word. Dean retrieved a six-pack from the fridge, noting glumly that it was the last of the beer and wishing he’d stopped to grab more when they were out getting pizza, and the three retreated to the living room to watch a movie. Sam hooked his laptop up to the TV and opened the media folder.

“Let’s see, we got some old horror movies, a couple buddy-cop flicks, various action movies...” Sam rattled off genres and titles absently.

“Zombies?” Danielle suggested. Sam found a copy of Dawn of the Dead, loaded the file and sat at the far end of the couch. The hunters relaxed gradually, eating pizza and drinking beer. Danielle chimed in with a sarcastic comment occasionally, or laughed with glee at the particularly gory zombie kills, but otherwise the air was filled only with sounds from the movie. About half way in, and a full six pack later, Sam stood up abruptly.

“I’m falling asleep sitting up. You guys finish your movie. I’m going to bed.” Danielle waved as he walked off toward his bedroom and drained the last of her beer.

“That’s the last of the beer isn’t it?” She glanced at the empty packaging on the coffee table.

“Yeah but I think we have some scotch. Lemme check.” Dean paused the movie, returning a few minutes later with a bottle of cheap scotch and two glasses. He poured a pretty generous quantity into each, handing one to Danielle, and sat back down in the middle of the couch, where he had been only moments before. Danielle started the movie back up, then kicked off her boots and stretched her legs out across the couch, effectively draping her lower half across Dean. He looked at her feet and screwed up his face, and was about to say something cutting, when she spoke.

“So how’d you guys get partnered up with an angel, anyway? That’s gotta be one hell of a story.” The scotch was sharp and peaty, and Danielle revelled in the warmth that spread from her belly out through her limbs as she sipped it.

“It’s a really, really long story, honestly, and I don’t get half of it myself. There was an apocalypse, and basically let’s just leave it at ‘Angels are Dicks’, but this one not so much.” Dean gave a rueful laugh and took a long swallow of his own drink. Danielle got the distinct impression that this line of questioning was a dead end, so she dropped it and turned her attention back to the movie. It was all blood and guts and lounge singer covers of Disturbed songs, and was awesome. Dean had to admit he didn’t usually go in for zombie flicks, but it was a pretty entertaining. And the zombie baby? That was obviously meant to be creepy, but if that wasn’t just the funniest thing…Dean laughed so hard he double over, knocking Danielle’s drink out of her hand and all over her lap.

“Jesus Christ Dean! That’s alcohol abuse!”

“Oh sure, everything’s my fault. It’s my fault can’t handle your liquor. It’s my fault the witch got away. They never caught Jack the Ripper, you wanna pin that one on me too?” Dean’s tone was a lot more casual than his words. He gave Danielle a toothy grin to show he was only joking. Still…

“Yeah look I’m sorry about that. It’s…probably not your fault. I get kinda worked up when I’m hunting, you know? “

“I am somewhat familiar what that feeling, yes.” Dean gave a nod, striding out of the room to grab a towel. Definitely striding. Not stumbling. Definitely not drunk enough to stumble, he assured himself. He returned a moment later and lobbed the towel at Danielle underhand. She grabbed it out of the air with impressive control for someone who’d matched Dean’s consumption that steadily, and started blotting her shirt and her lap, but the damage was already done. Danielle cleaned up the worst of it with a sigh. She picked up the empty glass off of the couch cushion and set it down on the table. She shook her head slightly, a small grin on her face, and Dean thought he heard a little laugh.

“What’s so funny? I thought you were pissed?” Not that Dean was complaining, because honestly he’d rather not fight with this girl any more, not if they had to hunt together, but he was having a hard time reading her.

“No it’s just, if you were just some random, that’s exactly where I would have batted my eyelashes and pulled some awful line about helping me get out of these wet clothes. That kinda shit always works for me. You, however, are not some random. You’re an asshole hunter and mostly I wanna set you on fire, but I also kinda want to tear your clothes off and see if the rest of you blushes like your face does.” She smirked at him, her eyes feral and dangerous, and damn if it wasn’t hot. Dean hadn’t even realized he was blushing.  “What do you say, Winchester? Angry drunk sex?” Dean hesitated, the alcohol slowing his thought process just enough to make it difficult to settle on whether this was a terrible idea or not. He was sure there were reasons he shouldn’t, but the scotch wouldn’t tell him what they were, so he nodded, standing up from the couch and moving towards her, intent on taking the lead as he usually did. Danielle wasn’t having any of it. She closed the distance between them quickly, pressing their mouths together in a rough, aggressive kiss, tangling her fingers in the short hair at the back of his neck and pressing herself against his chest. Dean’s hands found the small of her back, sliding under the hem of her t-shirt to press against smooth, warm skin. Then Danielle’s hands were on his chest, making fists in his own shirt, pulling him, dragging them away from the couch. She broke the kiss and, breathless and sultry, murmured, “Your place or mine?”

It was Dean’s turn to take control now, grabbing her hand and briskly leading the way towards his room. The door was barely closed behind them before she was on him again, hands pushing his shirt up, rough kisses bruising his lips. He pulled her hands away from his clothes, tearing his shirt off and pushing her back up against the door, pinning her arms with strong hands, the corners of his mouth curving up in a tiny smile as they pressed against hers, spurred onwards by the hungry noises escaping her throat.

Danielle broke free of his grip, placing calloused hands on his smooth chest and pushing him backwards. The backs of his calves pressed against the bed, and she gave him an ungentle shove, propelling Dean backwards with less grace than he would have preferred. He slid himself back toward the headboard, watching with rapt interest as long fingers gripped her t-shirt and pulled it off over her head, revealing a mural of ink. She bore dozens of tattoos other than the anti-possession tattoo that was identical to Dean’s own. The lamp didn’t provide enough light to make out with any certainty what they were, but he could see they spread up both her arms to the shoulder, across her upper back, and down the sides of her torso. She stepped out of her shorts, discarding the alcohol soaked garment carelessly, then climbed atop the bed and straddled Dean, meeting his eyes again with a look that was decidedly incendiary.

He reached an arm up, tangling his fingers in a fistful of her bleached hair, pulling her face down to meet his and drawing her back into another rough kiss. Danielle held herself up with one arm, the other hand roving over his body, tracing scars, exploring the hard planes of his chest, before taking one of his nipples between her fingers. She teased him, rolling it around deftly, gently for a moment, before pinching and twisting, _hard_. Dean growled against her mouth, wrapping an arm around her waist and upsetting the balance, flipping them so she was pinned to the memory foam mattress and he was towering over her. He pulled away from the kiss, their lips swollen and red, her face burning from his stubble, and buried his own face in the crook of her neck, nipping at the tender skin there. Dean ghosted a hand up her side, feeling little scars where the outlines of some of her tattoos hadn’t healed flat, then slid the hand behind her back to struggle with the clasp on her lace bra. There was a time when Dean would have been able to defeat the garment with no issue, but his conquests were fewer these days and he was out of practice. Finally, it snapped open. He tugged at the bra, tossing it carelessly off to the side, and noted with interest the tiny metal hoops through her nipples. He brushed his thumb against one, watching as Danielle arched her back, pushing her breast into his hand, delighting in the filthy noises she made as he did so. Dean moved now to take the nipple in his mouth. He flicked his tongue across the nub, licking in circles for a moment, before taking the ring between his teeth and giving a gentle tug. Danielle rolled her hips against him, her sharp intake of breath spurring him on. He repeated the process with the other nipple, then left a trail of kisses down the spray of flowers inked on her side as he tucked his thumbs under the waistband of her panties and slid them down over her hips.

He took a moment to drink her in, then, in the pale lamp-light of the room. Her muscular body bore just as many scars as his own, puckered remains of bullet holes and long slashes from knives, nicks and scratches from less serious wounds, burns and stabbings and unidentifiable marks telling the story of her kills, and those who would have killed her, given the chance. It was an all too familiar sight. Dean focused on the other markings, the tattoos, colourful artwork telling a different story, a story of her triumphs and her joys and her pleasures. He paused only a moment, but Danielle was impatient, greedy. She sat herself up, reaching strong arms out for him, grasping the waistband of his jeans, tugging at the button. Her arms bore an angel and a demon, one on each arm, not resembling the angels and demons Dean was familiar with, not in the style of those that he had killed, but like something out of a heavy metal album’s artwork. Dean stood up, slid his jeans and his boxers over his own muscular hips, freeing his achingly hard cock, then climbed back on to the bed.

“I’m bored of the small stuff. I want the main event.” She laughed, throaty and brazen, and reached out to pull him closer. Danielle tried to pull him back up towards her, impatient and eager, but Dean preferred to linger. He caressed the inside of her thighs with rough hands, gently though, teasingly. His head swam, with alcohol and desire, as he leaned down, pushed between those beautiful thighs, and lapped at the tantalizing warmth. She was already so wet, slick with arousal, as his tongue flicked over the bead of her clit, pushed into her, teased and licked and _oh god_ the noises she made. Each probing lick of his tongue brought obscene sounds, tumbling from those gorgeous full lips. He took her clit in his mouth and sucked, just gently, and she let out a fantastic string of profanity. If Dean wasn’t hard as a rock already, that would do it. He slipped a finger in now, sliding deep into her velvet heat, and she moaned, pushing her hips back to pull him deeper. That was enough for Dean. That was all he could handle. He gave her one last teasing lick, and extricated himself from her thighs. Danielle sucked a harsh breath as he fit himself to her, thrusting himself in deep. He paused as he bottomed out, meeting her eyes for a brief, intoxicating second, before he began to move. The rhythm was slow at first, not sensual, but experimental. As they fit together, becoming more familiar with each other’s bodies, their hips picked up the pace, and Dean thrust faster, harder, deeper. It wasn’t tender. It wasn’t loving. It was rough and raw, filthy and aggressive. Dean could feel his thumbs grip her hips tight enough to leave bruises, but he didn’t let up for a second. He could feel her fingernails bite into his biceps, leaving scratches and little furrows, but he didn’t care. This was fighting as much as fucking, and was bound to leave marks. He barely even registered as his fingers tangled themselves in Danielle’s hair, jerking her head backwards to expose her throat. His face buried itself in the crook of her neck, his mouth nipping roughly at the flesh there, leaving little marks, tasting sweat and breathing in the scent of her. Danielle howled wordlessly in his ear as her orgasm ripped through her, a guttural moan that somehow heightened his own arousal. She wrapped her legs around his hips and rocked her own hips upwards, meeting his thrusts with reckless vigour, and soon he was coming too, his mouth forming a cry that his lungs refused to give sound to. They collapsed to the bed, breathless, sheets clinging to sweaty limbs, and try as he might to resist, Dean sunk into a dreamless sleep without even reaching to turn off the light.


	3. Some Issues are Better Left Unresolved

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Danielle pretends nothing happened, Dean and Cas take a road trip, Sam forgets to eat lunch.

Dean woke the next morning, grey and foggy from the drink, and cursed under his breath when he saw the time on the clock. Past ten. Sam would definitely give him a hard time about sleeping so late, especially when they had a case. Dean brushed off a slight sense of disappointment at waking up alone. Usually, he was the one to disappear silently after a hook up. Danielle had snuck out at some point during the night, or perhaps she just got up before he did. He’d been dead to the world, sleeping soundly through the whole night, so it could have been either. He fumbled through pulling on clean underwear, yesterday’s jeans, and the first reasonably clean t-shirt he came across, then dragged his feet to the kitchen for the largest mug of coffee he could find. Danielle and Sam were both awake already, sipping coffee and absorbed in books. Danielle looked up as he walked in to the room with his coffee. He smiled at her, the charming grin he used to disarm witnesses and sweet talk waitresses in diners and bars. She cocked an eyebrow.  
“Good Morning, lazy,” Danielle teased. She met his eyes for just a moment, then turned her attention back to the book in front of her. Sam smirked.  
“What are you looking at, Sasquatch?” Dean dropped himself in to a chair and gulped his coffee, wincing as it burned his mouth. He pulled a book from the pile he’d been going through the day before but didn’t open it. Caffeine first, then work.  
“Nothing, it’s just, yesterday you were biting each other’s heads off. What gives?” Dean shrugged, pretending to lack an explanation, and sipped his coffee more carefully.  
“Stockholm Syndrome,” Danielle quipped. “You assholes are growing on me. Soon I’ll be empathizing with your cause and defending you to the police.” She batted her eyelashes and shot Sam a sickly sweet grin. Apparently she had no intention of acknowledging last night’s extra curricular activities “It happens to kidnap victims all the time.” Sam laughed half-heartedly. “I need to hit something. You guys have anything resembling a gym in this fallout shelter? Heavy bag? Inflatable clown?”   
“Not really. I mostly just run.” Sam replied.  
“Pity. Well, I’m sure I’ll figure something out. You guys think you can spare me off library duty for a few hours?”  
“Knock yourself out,” Dean called after her, as she strolled off into the bunker to find something passing for a workout space.  
Dean made no secret of how much he hated long research sessions. Sam was the bookish one. The older Winchester would much rather stick a knife in something than stick his nose in a book. If it were his call, they’d be back in Enid, boots to pavement, using good old fashioned detective skills, instincts, and their eyes. But even he had to admit there was almost no chance whatsoever that they’d be lucky enough to spot the remaining witch wandering the streets, and since they had no idea what was on her creepy Christmas list, they couldn’t afford to let walk free much longer. They needed a hit, and soon. Dean threw another useless book on the discard pile and growled in frustration.  
“I friggin hate this, Sammy. We’ve been at this for days and we have nothing! How the crap are we supposed to find this bitch? We know nothing about her, we don’t know what kind of mojo she’s working, we don’t know what she’s trying to do and we don’t know when she’s going to do it. I am going friggin stir crazy here!” Sam stared at his brother, somewhat dumbfounded.  
“Dude, chill. What’s gotten in to you? I know you don’t dig research but seriously. Take a breath.”  
“What’s that supposed to mean? How are you not freaking out about this?” Dean was standing now, gesturing wildly. “This witch was working some seriously strong stuff! There’s no telling what she could be up to!”  
“Yeah Dean, I was there, remember? I know. But as you pointed out, we’ve got nothing to go on. I’m not exactly sure what else you expect us to do.” Sam sighed, frustration and exhaustion clear on his face. “Why don’t you take a study break. Call Cas. Maybe you guys can go check out that basement and see if we missed anything useful.”  
“You think we’ll really get that lucky? Have you checked the scoreboard lately? Have you paid any attention at all to the last, oh, I don’t know, Ever?”  
“Fine, don’t go look. Don’t do anything at all, if you want. I don’t care. Just shut up and let me work on this translation. It’s the only thing we do have and you’re ruining that too.” Dean stormed out without another word, slamming the door to the bunker behind him. Once outside though, he found himself lacking direction. He realized belatedly that he’d stormed out without grabbing the Impala keys, and besides, he’d have to past Sam to get to the car. He had his phone though. Dean reached in to the pocket of his jacket and drew out the slim black device, unlocked the screen, and dialled. Before the call had a chance to connect, he heard the familiar flutter of wings and looked up to acknowledge the angel’s arrival.   
“Nice timing Cas, I was just about to call you.”  
“You did call me, Dean. I heard you.”  
“No I mean…” He held up the cellphone in front of Cas’s face. “Up for a bit of a road trip?”

Sam poured his attention into his futile translation attempt for what seemed like hours. There was likely nothing for Dean and Cas to find, but at least this way he could study in relative quiet. It only occurred to him how long he’d been working when his stomach asserted itself. He stood up from the table, his legs stiff from sitting so long, and went in search of food. He was half way through pulling out ingredients for a salad (he had to fit in real food when Dean wasn’t around) when he realized that he also hadn’t seen Danielle in several hours. He left the veggies on the counter and descended in to the lower levels of the bunker. Danielle wasn’t in the room they’d cleared out for her, she wasn’t in the garage. He checked the dungeon, on the off-chance she was crazy enough to hang out down there needlessly, but came up empty. She had to be somewhere in the bunker; there was no way for her to have left without someone seeing. Sam hid the keys to her car, and she would have had to come past him to leave through the front door. And her car had still been in the garage. He made his way back upstairs, now somewhat curious where she was hiding, but out of ideas. The bathroom door opened just as he reached the end of the hallway, letting out a cloud of steam and a towel-clad Danielle.  
“You give up on the books?” She ran a hand through the wet tangle of her hair and hitched her towel tighter.  
“Believe it or not, it is impossible to get anything done with Dean whining about research. I sent him off with Cas to go check out the basement to see if we missed anything. You know, so he’d shut up. Did you find somewhere to work out?”  
“Not really. Still feel like I need to hit something. The water pressure here is amazing though. Best shower I’ve had in a long time.” Sam couldn’t help his eyes roving over her body, barely hidden by the towel. “You like what you see?” Danielle winked at him, amused. He didn’t realize he’d been that obvious.  
“I uh…No, it’s just…” Sam struggled to find an answer that didn’t make him sound like a complete asshole and came up short. Danielle laughed.  
“Aw, don’t be embarrassed. I told you, I ain’t modest. Life’s too short for hang-ups.” She dropped the towel, shrugging her shoulders as if to say ‘oops’, but there was no debating that it was on purpose. She took a step towards him, and Sam meant to back away, really he did, but he found himself rooted in place. Sam raised his hands, in surrender or defence, he wasn’t sure which, as Danielle took another step forward. “Not too short for hook-ups, though.” Sam felt a wicked smile creep across his lips as his hands found the wet mass of her hair, grabbing rough handfuls. He tugged her into a passionate kiss, conscious of her nakedness pressed against his fully clothed body. Danielle’s mouth was warm and hungry against his, and she snaked her hands up to wrestle with the buttons on his shirt. He released her hair to let the shirt fall from his shoulders, leaving it in a heap near her discarded towel.   
She raked her nails down his chest, wasting no time in working open the buckle on his belt, tugging at the button and forcing the waistband, and his boxers, down over the curve of his ass to join the rest of their clothing on the floor. Sam felt a thrill as her slender fingers wrapped around his erection, stroking almost teasingly slow and gentle. He let out a groan, suddenly aware of how much he wanted her, wanted this, and her grip tightened. Danielle’s wet hair was trapped between her chest and his shoulder, cool drops of water leaving rivulets down his torso, a stark contrast to the heat of their bodies. Sam slid his hands down her hips, then grabbed her thighs and lifted her up, slamming her against the wall beside the open bathroom door and holding her there with the pressure of his own body. She had no choice but to wrap her legs around his hips, holding on for dear life as he rutted himself against her. Sam’s hands dug in to her thighs, undoubtedly leaving marks, and her own hands had a death-grip on his biceps. Sam’s perception narrowed to the feel of her mouth against his, her body against his, the obscene wet noises their mouths made, and the intensity of the desire throbbing in his core. He kissed her, hungry, ravenous.   
Danielle was responsive. Her legs gripped him tight, pressing his dick against her wet heat, tauntingly close, but the friction was nowhere near enough. He needed more. He needed to be inside her. Now. Sam let go his grip on her thighs, and wrapped a steady hand around his hard length, pressing the head against her entrance. He revelled in the breathy moan that played in her throat as he pushed into her, easing himself forward until they were pressed as close as possible, every possible inch of skin against skin. Danielle tightened her legs around him again, locking her ankles, angling her hips upward to pull Sam deep, deeper, and she groaned against his mouth. It was an awkward position, admittedly. Sam struggled for purchase, his bare feet giving a poor grip on the floor beneath him. He thrust, as hard and as deep as he was able, grinding his hips desperately. Sam grew frustrated, lifting Danielle away from the wall with a growl and striding as fast as he dared into the steamy bathroom. He set her down on the edge of the counter harshly. Danielle leaned back on her hands as Sam lifted her legs, resting them on his own shoulders. He drove in to her now, quick, hard thrusts. Danielle was practically bent in half, her tattooed legs framing his head as Sam pounded in to her. Tendrils of bleached hair clung to her sweat-slicked forehead. His partner whimpered, too caught up in the heat and the lust to vocalize any more than that. She held his gaze though, kept her eyes locked on his as her legs bounced on his shoulders and his hips collided with her thighs with bruising force. She kept eye contact right up until the moment the orgasm washed over her, threw her head back and moaned, low and keening. She was unabashed, rocking her hips in to Sam’s, writhing on the countertop, laughing with pleasure. Sam felt her tighten around his dick, and he groaned low in his throat as his hips stuttered, breaking rhythm, and his own orgasm blurred his vision and made his head swim. He gasped for breath, sweaty and sore and exhausted, as he lifted Danielle off the counter and set her down on the floor. The blonde hunter kissed him again, this time with less aggression, then patted him almost condescendingly on the cheek before walking out of the bathroom and down the hall. She disappeared around a corner before he made it out the door to gather his clothing, and Sam was left staring after her, more than a little confused.


	4. What's the Plural of Apocalypse?

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The boys catch a break on the case. Dean handles an uncomfortable conversation like a champ.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter is a whole lot longer and way more story driven than the last few.

Sam barely had time to re-dress himself before he heard voices in the bunker. His brother hollered gruffly from somewhere in the living area, and Sam suddenly remembered his failure to procure lunch. He was torn between hoping Dean brought food, and dreading his brother’s lunch choices. Sam didn’t know if he could handle chilli-cheese fries. He dragged a hand through his hair and took a quick glance in the mirror, hoping to avoid that “I just had sex” look, and followed the voices in to the kitchen.  
“Find anything?” he asked, as Dean pulled cartons of Chinese food out of a greasy paper bag and spread them out on the table.   
“A couple of things that might qualify as leads. Not really sure yet. You’ll have to take a look and see what you come up with. Figured we’d have lunch and then dive back in.” Sam noted that his brother was in a considerably less shitty mood than when he’d kicked him out of the bunker that morning. Spending time with Cas tended to have that effect on him, though Dean likely wouldn’t admit it, and Sam doubted it would go well if he brought it up. He’d likely get eviscerated for his trouble. “Where’s Danielle?”   
“Present and accounted for,” she chimed in as she entered the room. Danielle showed no signs of the sweaty romp she and Sam had just engaged in. Her hair, still wet, was wrapped up in a loose bun on top of her head, and she wore tight jeans and an AC/DC t-shirt that was strikingly similar to the one his brother frequently wore, only sized down for a girl. “So, you find a trail of flying monkeys to lead us back to the wicked witch? Or are we still bust?”  
“Found the remnants of some kind of spell, and a book. It’s pretty wrecked up, but we might be able to read parts of it. I think it’s a spellbook.” Dean offered, shovelling a giant portion of ginger beef on to his plate and grabbing an egg roll.   
“Grimoire.” Castiel interjected.  
“Huh?” Dean grunted around a mouthful of food.  
“It’s called a grimoire. A witch’s book of spells.” Cas looked at the food blankly. He stood back from the table, arms at his sides, still and silent as he observed.  
“Sit down, angel,” Danielle commanded. “Does he always loom like that?” Danielle asked?  
“I am not looming, human,” Castiel retorted, his voice flat as usual. “I do not need to consume food. I am simply waiting until you are prepared to work towards stopping these witches.”  
“I don’t care if you don’t eat. Sit down. You’re creepin me out.” Danielle didn’t wait to see if her command would be obeyed. She turned all of her attention to her chow mein. Castiel looked to Dean, who motioned toward a chair with a jerk of his chin, and the angel sat down stiffly to wait out the meal.

Plates cleared, the ragtag team wasted no time getting back to business, much to Dean’s regret. Cas and Sam started in on the new book, while Danielle continued to look for references to the dead plant phenomenon and Dean sought branches of magic with similar rituals to the one they’d seen at the abandoned building. Sam was the first to find new information.  
“Guys check this out. I think I found something.” Dean laughed internally at his brother’s enthusiasm. Give that kid a book and a homework assignment and he’d be happy forever. “It’s about Ragnarok.” Sam must have anticipated his brother’s lack of knowledge on the subject, because he offered an explanation without pausing to wait for the question. “It’s the apocalypse of the Norse mythology. Basically, the world is destroyed in flame, and the gods with it. After, any gods that do survive will have dominion, and the earth will be repopulated by two surviving humans. It’s pretty vague, like, prophecy vague, but it seems like they were working through a recipe to bring on the Ragnarok. The first step was to take out a specific list of people. The philanthropist, the virgin, the good soldier, the naturalist, and the broken hero. There’s a couple of rituals after that, an animal sacrifice and then a summoning spell at the equinox. She could have done everything except the last step while we’ve been looking. The vernal equinox is next week, so we’re running out of time.”  
“Vernal equinox? Speak English, stretch.” Danielle barked.  
“The first day of spring.”  
“Ok so that’s literally the worst thing you could have found. Like, the worst.” Danielle sighed. “is there any good news?”  
“well, kinda? Like I said, it’s sort of like a prophecy, so it’s vague, but it seems like the one who started it is the only one who can complete it. So if we do gank the last witch, we should be able to stop it.”  
“Damn, and I lost my stopping the apocalypse punch card. One more and I was gonna get a free sandwich.” Dean grinned, ignoring the glares. “Oh come on guys. This is like, the least difficult apocalypse we’ve ever had to stop.”  
“Speak for yourself,” Danielle interjected. “Some of us are new to the whole ‘oh my god oh my god the world is actually ending’ thing. I’m not digging this even a little.”  
“Anyway.” Sam continued, “It does say some useful things in here about the kind of magic we’re dealing with. These witches are working a branch of mojo based on intent. It’s not enough to do the rituals and say the words, you have to mean it. So in order to bring on the Ragnarok, you really really have to want to end the world. All their magic is like that. The same spell can have totally different effects based on what the caster intends. It’s pretty interesting, actually.”  
“Sam, can you stop fangirling on the witch we’re trying to kill and tell me something useful, please?” Dean interrupted, impatiently.  
“Ok fine, yeah. The intent leaves a mark. Like, a signature. With the right ingredients, and, admittedly, the right intent, we should be able to use this spell here,” he pointed at a page, “to find out where the witch is now, and go after her. We don’t have most of the stuff we need, but if we can get it, it shouldn’t be too hard.”  
“Give me a list,” Castiel offered. “I will obtain the requisite items for you.” Sam was already scribbling a list on a scrap of note paper.  
“Ooh let me come. Do you fly around or is it like angel teleportation?” Danielle grinned excitedly. Cas looked at her flatly, but Dean spoke first.  
“It’s fine Cas, if she gets out of line you can just smite her, right? No big deal.” Cas and Danielle vanished then, leaving the brothers Winchester to weed through their resources for more information, now that they knew what they were looking for.

Dean set up the divining ritual as best he could with the ingredients they already had on hand. The arrangement was unfamiliar and the items were not things he was used to working with in his limited witchcraft experiences, but he hoped his deep seated desire to put a blade or a bullet in this witch would could enough towards intent and make up for any tiny mistakes he might have made. Sam hunched over the battered book, not speaking at all, as Dean readied the spell at the other end of the table, until he came across something incredibly unsettling.  
“Um Dean….you might want to see this. I think I found the spell the witch hit you with. And I think we have a really problem.”  
“what are you talking about? She zapped me days ago and nothing happened. I’m fine. She must not have meant it.”  
“Yeah or you could just listen to me. I read something about it back here a little’” Sam flipped back a few pages and pointed to a paragraph as he read it out loud. “The intent of a caster’s spell work is as important as the words that are spoken. One must always be certain to focus on their true intention when working spells, lest an errant thought cloud the meaning and sully the spell. Likewise, a caster should be careful to focus the intention directly on the target. If the energy is indirectly focused on the target, the effects can be incomplete, or can be reversed completely.”  
“Reversed completely? So like it cancels the spell out. That’s why nothing happened.” Dean spoke dismissively.  
“No, Dean, I think it means the opposite of what the witch meant to do will happen.” Sam’s voice was grim.  
“So what did she mean to do, then?”  
“She meant to kill you.”  
“Yeah and I’m still alive so isn’t that like, the exact opposite of killing me?”  
“It’s the literal opposite, yeah, but I found a spell that I think sounds like what I heard her saying. I can’t be sure, because I didn’t really hear her clearly, but if I’m right, it doesn’t translate as kill. It translates as destroy.”  
“Again, not really seeing what the problem is. I am the opposite of destroyed. I am so very, very not destroyed right now.”  
“The opposite of destruction is not ‘not destruction.’ It’s creation.” Dean stared at his younger brother blankly.  
“The spell she hit you with was intended not to kill you, but to destroy you. If it hit directly, it probably would have wiped away every trace of you. Hell, from what I understand of this shit, it would have wiped away every single indication that you’d ever existed. But it didn’t. It hit the mirror and then hit you. You reverse the intention of a spell meant to wipe out every single trace of the existence of a man…”  
“I don’t think I like what you’re getting at, Sammy.”  
“And you create a woman.”  
“No. that’s stupid. You need to get your head out of those books.”  
“I’m serious Dean. Think about it. Danielle showed up at pretty much exactly the same time that witch hit you with a reversed kill-shot. She’s got your skills, your attitude, your taste in music…She even pretty much has your tragic back-story.”  
“Shut your goddamned mouth Sammy. This is so not funny.” Dean glowered at his brother, and Sam opened his mouth to contest his point further, when a thought hit him, and he couldn’t let it go.  
“Oh my god you slept with her didn’t you?” Sam’s eyes were wide as he laid on the accusation. Dean didn’t even have the shame to look contrite. “Dean seriously? She’s been here like 4 days? Seriously?!” Sam dropped the book to the table and rolled his eyes, and it would have been totally convincing if he was speaking to anyone other than the older brother who knew him so well. It wiped the bravado right off Dean’s face.  
“Aw crap Sam, you too?” Dean blustered. “Jesus Christ. Eew.” Dean stormed off to the kitchen to get himself a beer. He sorely needed a beer right now.  
“Hey, she came on to me. What was I supposed to do?” Sam shouted after her.  
“What were you supposed to do about what?” Danielle’s words cut through the tension in the room, but replaced it with a wholly different kind of discomfort. Neither brother heard the angel and the hunter return, and now they were caught in an awkward moment. Sam froze. He couldn’t very well tell Danielle what they’d learned about the spells without revealing what they suspected about her. If they were wrong, well, that would just be awkward. But if they were right, then Danielle only existed because a spell went wrong, and then what reason did she have to keep working with them? Also, insert existential crisis here, because that idea was enough to fuck with even the most well adjusted of people, and hunters were not traditionally well adjusted in any sense of the word. Sam realized he still hadn’t spoken. Dean returned with beer. He must have heard their companions return, because he had four bottles in his hands. Cas took the cool dewy glass and regarded it with disinterest. Danielle opened hers and took a drink, but didn’t miss the tension in the room. “Why so tense? You boys get in to a fight?” Neither Winchester made eye contact with the blonde hunter. And, she noticed, they didn’t make eye contact with each other, either. Sam seemed to be cultivating a deep fascination with his shoes, and Dean was staring at the angel with a mix of humour and embarrassment on his face.  
“Uh we were just having a conversation about witches, and magic and stuff. You know. Hunter things.” Dean’s terrible attempt to play off the tension fell flat on its face, and he wished he hadn’t spoken at all.  
“Right. Hunter things. And witches. And did this entirely fictitious conversation happen to include any useful information about actual witches? Because the total lack of eye contact in this room gives me the frankly hilarious idea that you guys have been talking about something totally not hunting related.” Danielle dropped a canvas bag on the table. “I got your spell ingredients. Now, are we going to lo-jack us a witch or are you two just going to stand there examining your shoes?”  
“yeah, yeah the spell. But Danielle, uh, listen. I we found something else while you were out. I think you should hear this.” Sam began, still a little unsure how to approach the subject. Danielle listened, expressionless, as Sam explained the reversal of intent and the spell Dean had been hit with. “I don’t think it’s a coincidence that you showed up seconds after that happened. I think the witch’s intent to destroy Dean was so strong, the reversal of it actually created a whole person. Instead of destroying a man, it created a woman. I mean think about it, you two are way too much alike. And your story is remarkably close to Dean’s own childhood. You like the same things, you have the same attitude towards hunting, and you are every bit as much an asshole as my dear brother here, except you’re a girl.”  
“Sam, you are a whole lot prettier when you’re not spewing absolute crap, you know that? I didn’t just get created in that basement. I have memories. I have a life. You drove my fucking car. You think a witch’s oops just made all that shit up?”   
“If her intent to kill Dean was strong enough, then yeah, I think it could have. If she meant it, really meant to wipe out every trace of him, then I think the intent would have been strong enough to will you in to existence, even fabricate memories and possessions. If she meant to destroy everything about him, and she was strong enough, she could easily have created everything about you.” Sam gave a sad smile as he spoke.  
“Jesus Sam, you really know how to make a girl feel special. Well, you know what? Fuck it. I’m pretty sure you’re the wrongest wrong that’s ever wronged, but if you’re right? So what. I’m here now, and I’m carrying a bullet for this bitch.”  
“”So what you’re saying is that she is essentially a female version of Dean?” Castiel chimed in. Sam nodded. Cas tilted his head to the side as if pondering a deep existential question. “Does that make your sexual encounters more, or less uncomfortable to discuss?” The two brothers spun to look at Castiel in wide eyed horror. “I don’t understand,” Cas continued. ”Danielle told me she found you both attractive. Were neither of you aware of her attraction to the other?”  
“Yeah Cas, we know,” Dean choked out. “Mostly I was trying to pretend I didn’t know, but yeah, it came up. I’m not exactly in the habit of sharing girls with my damn brother!” Danielle burst out laughing.  
“Oh for the love of…..You two need to get over yourselves. Put yourself in my shoes Dean, really. You’re on a hunt, you end up shacked up with a couple of hot sisters. They’re both eyeing you up, pretending like they’re not….You try telling me you wouldn’t hit that like a load of bricks the second you got a chance.” Now it was Dean’s turn to laugh.  
“OK you know what Sam, she’s got a point, and I’m honestly starting to see it. Maybe she is me. Or at least, you know, like, Girl-Me.”  
“I don’t think that’s exactly evidence. I think it just means I understand how much you think with your dick.” She spat back.  
“What, because you’re prone to thinking with your…”  
“DEAN!!” Sam interrupted. “That’s enough. You can be juvenile later.”  
“I’m still not sure what you’re upset about, Dean,” Castiel spoke as if he hadn’t noticed the argument. “If what Sam says is true, and I do believe he has the right of it, then all you’ve done is masturbate. Sam is the one who should feel concerned.”  
“Don’t say it Cas. Please. It’s well past funny.” Sam let out a long suffering sigh and shook his head.  
“Don’t say what? That it essentially amounts to intercourse with your brother?” The angel bore an innocent expression, but Danielle burst out laughing again.  
“Hey! I have an idea, lets pretend that no one ever said that, or even thought it, because if I hear that shit again I might vomit myself to death, ok?” Dean grabbed his beer off the table and drank the rest of it without stopping to breathe.  
“Oh good, I’m glad we’re all going to be super mature about this. Awesome.” Sam rolled his eyes. “Can we do the spell now?”

The spell consisted of preparing an altar, burning some herbs, and pouring the ashes over a map while chanting. It was rather basic as far as witchcraft went, but Sam was careful to point out that the intent was going to play a big part.  
“If you can’t keep your mind focused on finding the witch, not killing her but actually finding out where she is, then you need to go away. I can’t be sure how much it’s going to mess with things.” Dean nodded. Castiel hung back, not interested in participating in the ritual. At the last second, Danielle bowed out.  
“I’m way too stabby and not so much find-y over this. Come get me when you have a location. She sauntered out of the room without so much as another word, as Sam began to chant over the metal bowl filled with rare herbs Cas and Danielle had procured. Dean didn’t understand a word he was saying, but he tried to keep his mind focused on the witch. He thought about the apocalypse she was trying to start, all the people who would die if she was successful, and fed it all into his desire to find her. He was so focused, he barely noticed when Sam tips the bowl of ashy herbs out over a map of Enid. There was a disturbance in the air, like a wind with no source, and the ashes settled in a thin layer. It covered every part of the city except for an inch square.   
“There,” Dean announced. “That’s where our witch is.” Sam jotted down the cross-street. “So when do we do this?”  
“We should leave first thing in the morning. Get a good night sleep, go in there armed to the teeth, and drop a house on her. Cas, you in?” Sam looked to the stoic angel in the corner.  
“I must return to the Garrison.” The angel offered no other explanation, and vanished in a flutter of wings. 

“I need you guys to help me with a spell.” Danielle demanded when she slunk out of her room an hour later.  
“We already echo-located the witch. What else do we need?” Dean countered. Danielle produced the witch’s grimoire from behind her back.  
“I’ve been reading this. Like Sam said, the intent leaves a signature. If he’s right, I’d be swimming in it. There’s a spell in here that can sniff it out.” She marked a page with her finger and handed the book the Sam.  
“This is a pretty basic spell. We can do it with what we have on hand. But are you sure?” Sam’s voice was soft, empathetic.  
“Not knowing isn’t going to change anything. I hope to God you’re wrong, but if you’re not, I need to know what I’m walking in to.” Sam nodded, at a loss for words. Dean offered her a weak smile as his brother gathered the ingredients for the spell. He mixed herbs in a chalice, chanting words over them, reading the dusty leather volume carefully, making extra sure to pronounce each syllable correctly. Sam focused his intent on finding the truth for Danielle. The spell would depend on that. He finished chanting and dropped a lit match into the herbs, letting them burn and smoulder until the flames burned down to nothing and a plume of grey smoke wafted out of the chalice.  
“Now what?” Dean asked.  
“Now we wait for the smoke to clear. Anything that’s the product of the witch’s spell will illuminate, it says.” Sam expected it to take a few minutes to take effect, but as he looked up to gauge Danielle’s reaction, he was proven wrong. To his eyes, she was shrouded in a hazy pink light, like a neon sign viewed through heavy fog. It enveloped her entire being, made it difficult to see her features. Danielle looked down at her own hands, and it must have been visible to her eyes as well, because she immediately turned and walked out of the room. Sam followed her down the hallway, but she slammed the bedroom door behind her and he knew better than to follow.

Dean and Sam didn’t see Danielle again that evening. Dean knocked on her door to let her know the plan, but she didn’t respond except to say she’d see them at the ass-crack of dawn. The brothers ate leftover Chinese food in silence, loaded the trunk of the impala with everything they could imagine needing for the battle ahead, and then Sam went to bed. Dean, on the other hand, sat on top of his bed with the lights on until well into the night. He couldn’t sleep. Didn’t even feel tired. It wasn’t the anticipation of a hunt. If he didn’t know better, he could almost convince himself he was worried about the events the morning would bring. He’d clashed with Danielle, sure, and they’d had a good roll in the hay, but he hadn’t known her long enough, didn’t care about her enough, to be worried about whether she’d die tomorrow, did he? If killing the witch might come at the cost of Sam’s life, well that’s something Dean could understand being stressed about. Or Cas, he acknowledged. If something threatened Cas’s life he’d fight it too. But he barely knew this girl, and if what Sam suggested was true (and he was starting to think there was serious merit in Sam’s theory) then killing the witch could very well mean Danielle ceased to exist to. Dean came to the slow realization that he was feeling bad because he was thinking about how she must be feeling. He picked himself up off the bed and wound his way down the hallway until he came to the closed door of the room they’d set aside for her. He could see the glow of lamplight escaping under the door. Dean raised a careful hand and knocked softly. It was enough that she’d hear it if she was awake, he reasoned, but not enough to wake her if she’d fallen asleep with the lights on. He didn’t even know what time it was. Danielle opened the door with a blank look on her face.  
“Hey, you’re up.”  
“Hey, you’re observant.” She made as if to close the door on him.  
“I just came to see how you were doing. Pretty heavy stuff, right? I mean, this is your first apocalypse. Thought maybe you could use some company.” She sighed and opened the door further, allowing him in.  
“Yeah, they don’t really teach you how to prepare for the end of the world in public school, you know? Killing witches, that I can do. I’ve been hunting for a damn long time. I know what I’m at. Or at least, I have memories that tell me I do. But shit, this spell work thing is really fucking me up. I remember growing up. I remember learning to hunt. I remember high school and my first case, and all of it. And it’s not real. That fucks a person up. The more I think about it, the more it gets under my skin, and I’m not digging the implications.” Dean was quiet for a moment, studying the angel and demon tattoos on Danielle’s crossed arms before replying.  
“Sam might not be right, you know? Even if he’s right about…where you came from, killing the witch might not kill you. The intent stuff, it’s pretty strong. If it was strong enough to make an entire back-story for you on an accidental reversal, it might be strong enough to outlast the bitch that did it.”  
“And it might not. I might just….fade out. I’m not denying it’s what needs to happen. This bitch needs to die. I’m just not loving the idea that killing her might mean I die too, you know?”  
“Danielle, you are basically me with boobs. I’m understand exactly what you’re thinking. I’d be freaking out a little too, if I were you. Like, I mean you-you. Not how I’m me, but I’m also kinda like you….Nevermind. You know what I mean.” Dean shook his head, like he was trying to clear the cobwebs and errant thoughts.  
“Yeah I think I get it.”  
“What I’m trying to say is, we’ve got to kill her. The apocalypse is just like, not ok. And I wish we could know for sure what was going to happen, ‘cause you’re pretty alright I guess. But if it’s too much, you can hang back. It won’t change the outcome, but I won’t make you the instrument of your own destruction if you can’t deal.”  
“Thanks Dean, I appreciate it, but I can’t do that. The bitch has to die, and I’m going to be there. If I have to go down too, well, then I was never really here to begin with. And if I walk out of there, if I get to live through stopping an apocalypse, then that’s a bonus. But listen, I’ve been meaning to talk to you about something.”  
“Oh yeah, what’s that? You gonna give me the ‘It’s my last night on earth’ line? Because I pretty much invented that shit so I’m immune to it.” Dean shot her a disarming grin.  
“Yeah, oddly enough, now that I know I’m like you’re magical carbon copy, I find you way less attractive. There’s something incredibly narcissistic about the idea of sleeping with yourself, you know? I think I’ll pass. But now that I know I’m your magical carbon copy, I’m also going to drop some rather insightful knowledge on you. This might be the last chance we get to talk, and I’d kick myself if I didn’t say something while I had the chance.”  
“Yeah well since you’re pretty much me you also know that this has already been way more of a chick moment than I generally allow.” Dean started to walk towards the door, but Danielle’s hand on his arm stopped him in his tracks.  
“Since I’m basically you with boobs, as you pointed out, I’m also uniquely equipped to tell you that you’re a giant idiot, and you should listen to me,” she barked, and Dean was taken aback. The more he listened to this girl, the more of his own personality he saw reflected back at him. It was unsettling, sure, but also a little comforting. Whether he admitted it or not, he appreciated the connection. “We don’t let ourselves want things, Dean. You and I, we spend so much time worrying about making everyone else happy and safe, that we never stop to think about what we want.” He started to interrupt her, then paused. She kinda had a point. “You sacrifice so much, you don’t think it’s time you looked out for you?”  
“There’s never time, Danielle, and you know it. There’s always some big bad around the corner. I don’t get the luxury of wanting things.” Dean became engrossed with his shoes again.  
“That’s bullshit Dean and you know it. You’re afraid of your emotions. You forget. I’m you. I can see right through your smokescreen. All I’m saying is you need to think about it. Maybe your life and happiness aren’t mutually exclusive. Maybe you can have both.”  
“Are you listening to yourself? I’m a hunter. Always will be. I’m on the road pretty much full time. I tried the apple pie life. It doesn’t work. I don’t get to settle down. “ Danielle laughed at him.  
“Wow. You’ve been lying to yourself for so long I think you might actually believe it! I see the way you look at that angel, and it’s pretty clear what’s going on in that head of yours. You should talk to him.” Dean was pointedly silent. “Yeah, that’s what I thought. Just…don’t miss your chance because you’re too stubborn to admit you have human emotions. Let yourself have something good. You’ve earned it.” Danielle released his arm, and Dean walked out the door and back to his own room. He didn’t have the nerve to deny her accusations, but he was afraid if he spoke he’d just confirm them. He fell in to bed fully clothed, exhausted but completely unable to speak. Dean lay there, fitfully awake, until Sam pounded on his door at six, and made his bleary eyed way to the kitchen for coffee and battle strategy. Maybe after the apocalypse he’d get to take a nap.


	5. You’re More Like Me Than I Am

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Our band of heroes goes witch hunting

The plan was simple, really. It wasn’t even much of a plan. They had located a one block radius where the witch was holed up, thanks to Sam’s divining spell, and all they really needed to do was get in and put a bullet or twelve in her face. Nothing in the spell book had given them any reason to believe she wouldn’t die bloody just like any other person on the planet, so salt rounds and demon killing knives and angel blades were all unnecessary accoutrements. Dean armed himself with a battle tested pistol and a few extra clips and slid wearily in to the driver’s seat of his beloved Impala. Originally, Danielle had expressed an intention of driving there in her own car, but Dean stomped on the plan.  
“We need to stick together. Show up as a group, kill the bitch, leave as a group. We’ll bring you back to your car after.” He left the ‘if’ unspoken. She heard it anyway. She climbed into the back seat grudgingly, nursing a travel mug full of coffee, her eyes more than a little haunted at the prospect of being wiped from existence in a few short hours. Sam tried to reassure her, speaking confidently about the strength of the intention and how much the witch must have really, really wanted to kill Dean, which earned him a few daggered looks from the driver, but Danielle wasn’t that easy to soothe. She huddled silently in the back seat, staring wistfully out the window for most of the drive through the back roads, to the highways, and in to Enid. Dean didn’t blindfold her this time. He tried to tell himself it was because he’d come to trust the girl, but in the back of his mind, a really cruel voice interrupted and told him it was because she’d never get the chance to bring anyone back to the bunker. He stamped it down with aggressive mental boots and focused on the road. It was nearing noon when they rolled in to Enid, the streets a bustle of people on their lunch breaks. There was more traffic than last time they’d been here. Dean parked the Impala on a side street about a block from where the spell had told them they’d find their quarry. Dean checked his gun for the third time as he stepped out of the car and swung the door shut behind him. The building had seen better days. It was surrounded by a chain link fence that was down in more places than it was standing. At some point, it had likely been used as a warehouse, but now it just housed rats and probably some vagrants. The three picked a careful path from the fence across the pavement, littered with garbage, and approached a side entrance door. The handle had long since been destroyed, so while the door sat closed, there was nothing to stop them from just pushing it open and walking inside. Dean went in first, gun at the ready, eyes sharp as he scanned the dim hallway for signs of the witch they sought. The light faded as the door swung limply shut behind Sam, and Dean turned on his flashlight.   
The doorway had let them into a small area off the main warehouse. There was an office off to one side, the glass in the window shattered long ago. Someone had been sleeping there, probably quite recently judging by the spell. The witch wouldn’t have wanted company; Dean spared a small sad thought for whoever had crawled in here looking for sanctuary and likely found death instead. A set of double doors to the other side of the room looked like it would lead in to the main warehouse area. Dean motioned to his companions and crept towards the door cautiously. Adrenaline coursed through his veins, making it easy to ignore the fact that he hadn’t slept a wink the night before. He felt alive, and dangerous, as he shouldered one of the doors open and let his gun lead.  
“I was wondering when you were going to show up,” came a voice out of the shadows. The witch spoke in soft lilting tones, but there was a hint of malice behind the words. “Tweedle-Dee and Tweedle-Dum, come to ruin my fun, have you?” Her voice bounced off the bare concrete walls, and Dean couldn’t locate her. She had to be somewhere in the room, and there wasn’t much to hide behind, but where? “I see you brought that abomination with you. Have you figured out what she is by now? She’s not even real, kids. Who brings their imaginary friend on a witch-hunt?” Dean could feel the rage radiating off Danielle at these words, without even turning to look at her. He knew the witch was trying to provoke them into doing something stupid, and he also knew that if he was in Danielle’s shoes, it would work. Which meant it was going to have exactly the effect she intended.  
“Don’t listen Danielle, she’s just trying to get inside your head,” Sam murmured. He motioned to Dean, indicating that they should fan out and search. Danielle was tense, but resolute, her head on a swivel, each bouncing echo grabbing her attention as she hugged the left wall and sought the witch’s hiding place.  
“What do you think is going to happen to you, if you manage to kill me? Does Pinocchio get to be a real girl? I made you, albeit by accident. Don’t you think I have the power to unmake you? You put a bullet in my head, what makes you think you won’t drop dead right with me?” Her laughter was cruel, sadistic, and it just barely masked the sound of her footsteps. She was moving, and Dean was almost certain she was on the catwalk above the warehouse floor. He made for the stairwell on his side, trying to catch Danielle and Sam’s eyes, to indicate what he was planning. Danielle saw, but Sam was too far forward to catch his signals.  
“I don’t much think it matters what happens to me, bitch, so long as you die. If I have to drag you to hell all by myself, kicking and screaming, you’re going.” Danielle’s voice was clear and steady. She swept her eyes, and her gun, across the lower floor, but took little peeks upwards. They hadn’t caught sight of her yet, but she had to be in here somewhere. Danielle crept around the side of an empty storage shelf, willing herself to stay calm, alert, focused. She barely had time to jump out of the way as something slammed into the shelf behind her. The air felt charged, like she had walked in to a lightning storm. The shelf went toppling over and she threw herself into a tuck and roll, darting, she hoped, out of the range of attack and into a more sheltered position.  
“Awfully confident for someone who’s only been alive 5 days, you little tramp. You’d better hope you’re tough enough. If I get my way, you’ll die last. I’ll bleed the life out of your little fan-club, slow and painful, and you’ll watch every minute. Which one do you like best? The tall one or the angry one? “ There was another clatter, somewhere towards the back of the warehouse. She heard Sam grunt, then a few shots fired in the air. Did he see her or was he just taking pot-shots? Danielle hadn’t sighted their target yet and her trigger finger was getting itchy.  
“Now who’s deluded? You think Ragnarok ends any way but bloody for you? It’s the freaking Viking apocalypse. Even if you beat us, you’re fucked.” Danielle caught sight of Dean, crouched low as he made the top of the stairs, creeping along the catwalk. He moved with determination, and it seemed as if he knew where he was headed. He might even have eyes on her, but not a clear line of sight, or he would have taken a shot by now.  
“No, no I’m not,” and Danielle could hear the insanity as she spoke. “The world will be cleansed in fire, and I will survive to remake it in the image of our new Gods. Two will survive, and we will repopulate. Perhaps I will keep one of your boy-toys around for the new world order.” Danielle saw her now, she was sure of it, just a hint of motion on the catwalk, out of Dean’s range and behind a fixture, but yes, the figure of a woman in the shadows. She couldn’t see either of the Winchesters, couldn’t signal to them. Danielle’s eyes searched the warehouse floor, looking for cover and a path. If she could make it to the other side of the open floor, she could pick a shot, maybe take the witch out before she found any of them.  
“Bitch you are seven kinds of crazy, you know that?” Danielle heard Dean’s voice, and she saw him then. He’d made his way across the catwalk unseen, crept up on the witch’s position, and before she had a chance to react, he shoved her, hard, and she tumbled, ass over teakettle, over the railing and through the open air. Everything moved in slow motion as she fell. The witch let out a howl, whether from rage or fear, Danielle couldn’t be sure. She landed with a sickening thud on the concrete floor, her howl silenced as all the air was driven out of her lungs. Danielle hesitated. She was closest. Dean would take too long to get down to the witch. If she wasn’t dead she’d be a threat again by then. Sam was coming, she could hear him coming, but it had to be her. She closed the distance across the floor swiftly, gracefully. She stopped a short few steps from the body there and saw the witch for real for the first time. Her face was younger than Danielle had expected, her features shockingly normal, identifiable even behind the mask of pain she wore now. Danielle wasted no more time. She raised her aimed her gun, and with a silent prayer she was certain would go unanswered, she emptied the clip into the snarling face of the one who made her.


	6. The First Breath you Take After Giving Up

Sam reached them first. His long legs carried him swiftly. He’d already been moving when he heard the witch howl, but he’d broken in to a sprint when he’d heard six shots. He nearly careened into a pile of debris, and skidded to a halt at the feet of the witch’s bleeding corpse. Her face was a ruined mess, more bullet holes than features, an ever growing pool of blood forming under her dark hair. The sticky mess had already spread out to where Danielle was slumped, darkening the knees of her jeans, clinging to her hands.  
“Danielle?” He ventured, apprehensive. He stepped around the body and crouched at her side. Sam pressed a hand to her throat, pushing aside her pale hair. She had a pulse, but it was weak and she wasn’t moving. Dean hollered as he approached.   
“Is she…?” he left the rest of the question unspoken.   
“She’s alive. Check the witch.”  
“Are you kidding I heard six shots. Who the fuck survives six shots to the face?”  
“Just do it, ok?” Sam snapped. Dean tucked his gun behind his belt and crouched down. The witch’s ruined face was evidence enough, but he checked for a pulse anyway. She was already growing cold.   
“Ding Dong, Sammy. This witch is definitely dead.” Sam picked Danielle up in a fireman carry. “How come I always get stuck with the corpses?” Dean grimaced, then grabbed the witch by the legs and dragged her towards the door. He got about five feet before he gave up. “I’m bringing the car around. You can put her in the back seat and help me with the damn body.” Dean dropped the witch and strode out in to the street. When he returned with the Impala, Sam was just standing in the courtyard, Danielle unconscious in his arms. He wasn’t looking at her. He wasn’t looking at anything. When Dean opened the door to the back seat, Sam slid her on to the seat silently. Neither of them spoke, not a word, as they built a pyre and torched the would be apocalypse-bringer. It was all wrote. Absently, Dean wondered how many corpses they’d torched, collectively, over the years. How many bad things? How many friends? Fire was cleansing, but it never seemed to wash the blood off his own hands. He shook off the melancholy as he watched the witch turn to ashes, but the ride back to the bunker was full of a choking silence anyway.

Danielle didn’t wake up the whole ride home. She was silent and immobile as they moved her from the car in to her bedroom. She stirred, slightly, as Sam pulled the covers up to her chin, but she didn’t wake. Her face was cool and clammy, like she’d sweat out a fever, and she wasn’t injured in any visible way, but she didn’t wake.

Dean spent the next three days wracked with silent guilt. Rationally, he knew he shouldn’t blame himself. He knew Danielle wouldn’t. But she only existed because of him, and so he felt ownership of her suffering. He lost sleep. He snapped at Sam, who was patient and understanding, and in his own head he gave himself a litany of admonitions, cursed and railed and blamed his own self. On the fourth day, Castiel popped in. Dean looked at the angel with pleading eyes, wanted to beg him to fix the unconscious hunter, but the moment he arrived, all Dean could think about was his last conversation with Danielle. It stilled his hand and shut his mouth, to think what Danielle had seen when she looked at his interactions with Cas. She’d been so right about everything else she’d said. About his unwillingness to wish for things for his own good. How he put everyone else first. How could she have gotten all that right and been so backward about the angel? Dean shrugged it off. That was a train of thought for an entirely different time. Perhaps never.   
As it turned out, he didn’t need to beg. He didn’t even need to ask.   
“Did you defeat the witch?” Castiel asked, his tone emotionless, his gravely voice even. Sam nodded, but there was something in the slump of his shoulders that Cas couldn’t ignore. “The blonde one. She died?”  
“Not quite. She’s…comatose?” Sam spoke softly, his eyes haunted. Dean wondered internally if it ever got easier to watch your allies, your friends, die right in front of you. He hoped not.  
“Where is she?” Cas let himself be led down the hallway towards Danielle’s bedroom. The room was dimly lit. Sam had left the lamp on, more for their benefit than hers, but he’d also insisted that it would be less terrifying for her to wake up in a lit room than in the pitch blackness of the windowless room. Not if, but when she woke up, he’d been firm on the phrasing. She hadn’t moved since Dean had last checked on her, earlier that morning. She hadn’t moved at all. Cas approached the bed without a word and placed two fingers on the girl’s forehead, and to Dean’s eyes, nothing happened. Cas was still, focused for a minute that stretched out into eternity, and when he spoke again, his voice was as flat as ever.  
“She’s not comatose. She’s in there, but it’s faint. It’s like she’s forgotten how to wake up. I can do nothing for her.”  
“Thanks anyway Cas,” Dean croaked, and he meant it.  
“It occurs to me,” the angel continued, as they walked out of the room and shut the door softly, “that there might be some factor of intent present here too.” Dean looked at him questioningly. “She was created by intent I don’t fully understand this branch of magic—it’s obscure, but it seems to me that without the witch’s existence to sustain her, she’s become somewhat of a memory of herself. Her own will to live isn’t enough. She needs a stronger intent.”  
“So what you’re saying is think positive? Send her good thoughts and maybe she’ll pull through?” Dean almost laughed.  
“It can’t hurt, Dean,” Sam’s reply is hopeful.  
“Yeah,” he hears himself say. “I guess it can’t. But I think we should look through that damned book again. Maybe there’s something other than the power of positive thinking we can do for her.”

Dean spent the whole day flipping between pouring over the ratty leather-bound book and willing himself to stop being such a negative ass. For Danielle’s sake. Instead of blaming himself for Danielle’s suffering, he tried to credit himself for her existence. He tried to remind himself that all her happy memories from before this past week were taken from his own life. He tried to think about all the things that were good in his life, had been good in his life. It was an unfamiliar pursuit for Dean, and it was difficult. He started simply. What made him happy? Pie made him happy. Ganking bad motherfuckers made him…no, not happy. He dismissed that one. Satisfied, but that was more like a job well done than legitimate happiness. The Impala. That car made him happy, because it was his, because it was home away from home. Almost all his good childhood memories came from that car. He let his mind drift to the rare good times of his life on the road with Sam and John, and he wondered how those memories resembled his own. He flipped absently through the grimoire as he reminisced, not really seeing the pages. It occurred to him that Danielle’s Jake was modeled after their own Bobby, and he smiled. Bobby. Bobby and Sam were his real family.  
He felt a pang of regret, as his mind conjured up an image of a photograph. Bobby and Sam and Ellen and Jo and himself, and Cas. Before everything went to shit. It was so hard to think of happier times when everyone associated with them was dead now. Dead, or had been dead and were only alive because of some fucked up deus ex machine. Bobby, dead. Ellen, dead. Jo, dead. Himself and Sam, should be dead several times over. Cas, well, Lucifer had exploded his damned head. Even for an angel, that should count as dead. He ignored the way his stomach twisted when he thought about Cas, exploded like a balloon. Cas, walking in to the lake. Cas, letting go of his hand in Purgatory.  
The book wasn’t helping. There were spells to kill, spells to control others, to bend their minds to the caster’s intent. Spells to hurt, or destroy, spells to locate, to obscure, to summon a person to a place. But oddly enough, there was nothing about restoring the health of a person who only existed because a destruction spell had backfired. Maybe they were setting some sort of precedence here. He slammed the book closed.

Sam hadn’t placed any stock in the book. As soon as Dean sat down to start reading, he grabbed the keys to Danielle’s Camaro and headed out to the garage. He ignored the irony of Dean being the one to insist on research. The car was a physical manifestation of Danielle’s continued existence, and by Sam’s logic, if the memory of the witch’s intent was strong enough to sustain the car, then Danielle stood a chance. He opened the door and slid in to the driver’s seat. The leather seats were well maintained, and the car smelled not unlike the familiar aroma of the Impala. He reached a hand up and grasped the fuzzy dice that dangled from the rear view mirror, sparing a wistful smile. Dean would never hang something like that from the Impala’s rearview. Except that in some reality, he would, because here was Danielle’s car, and she was Dean in almost every sense, and she had chosen this adornment. He started up the engine, not intending to go anywhere. He just wanted to hear the roar of it, feel the vibrations of the engine. The car purred to life, and AC/DC blared through the speakers. He let it play. Sam let himself wonder what Danielle would do when she woke up. Would she hunt? Would she try to continue the life that had been manufactured for her, out of his brother’s memories, his brother’s life? Would she hunt with them? He dismissed the idea of a trio out of hand, then remembered that they took cases with Cas frequently enough that he had to be counted as part of the team, so they were really already a trio. Would she try to go legit, get out of the life and make something real out of what she’d been given? Sam remembered Dean’s try at the apple pie life, when he’d thought Sam was dead, and he dismissed that too. Danielle was Dean, in every sense that mattered, and for any of them, the only way out of this life was a funeral pyre. He sat in the car, running the engine and listening to Danielle’s tapes for so long that he lost track, trying to do Danielle justice with his thoughts, spooling out all the scenarios he hoped she’d get a chance to encounter when she woke up. When, he reminded himself. Not if.

Dean was still sitting over the book when he came back inside, but he wasn’t reading it. He was staring at the wall, arms crossed on his chest, a look of determination and frustration on his face.   
“We suck at this, Sam.” His older brother spoke without looking at him. “We are so damned good at killing things but we can’t even keep one stupid girl alive.” Sam rolled his eyes. Dean could be so dramatic sometimes. He supposed the situation called for at least a little drama, but this was overdoing it. But it did give him an idea. He grabbed a few beers out of the kitchen, noticing that the clock read three pm, but dismissing it. It was five o’clock somewhere, and the easiest way to get his brother talking was to give him a drink. Setting the beers down on the table, he dragged the book away from his brother and sat down opposite him.  
“What do you think Danielle will do when she wakes up?” Sam began.  
“I don’t know man. How do we even know she’s gonna wake up, anyway?” Dean twisted the top off his beer but didn’t drink. He stared at the bottle like he was surprised to find it in his hand.  
“Humour me. What’s the first thing she’ll do?” Sam sipped his own beer.  
“Uh, she’ll probably be hungry. She hasn’t eaten anything in days. Man, if I slept for a week, I’d be starving.” Sam picked up a pen and a notepad and started scribbling. “What’s that?”  
“I’m making a list. Everything we need to do before she wakes up, so we’re ready.” Sam smiled at his brother. “What would you eat, if you slept for a week?”  
“Bacon. So much bacon.” Dean admitted.  
“Bacon. Ok. And eggs. And toast.”  
“And hashbrowns. And Pie. She’s me, she’ll want pie.” Dean drank from his beer now, deeply, as if he’d forgotten to be melancholy and just remembered how to be alive. “And whiskey.”  
“For breakfast?”  
“You don’t know it’ll be morning. Maybe she wakes up at dinner. Breakfast for dinner is a real thing. Besides, that’s what I’d do. I’d have bacon and eggs and toast and hashbrowns and pie and whiskey. Write that down.”  
“Ok. Whiskey. What next.”  
“Well she’s gonna want a shower. She’s got blood in her hair, and she’s still wearing bloody jeans. I didn’t feel right undressing her. You know, all things considered.”  
“Ok, so girly shower things. Vanilla stuff and whatever.” Sam wrote as he spoke.  
“Yeah I think she has some stuff in the bathroom. I noticed it in there the other day.” Dean tried to read the list upside down across the table but gave up.  
“No, it has to be new. This is about intent, remember?” Dean’s eyes shifted, not quite lighting up, but some of the darkness receded. He was starting to grasp Sam’s plan.  
“Right. We have to mean it. Act on the intent. Gotcha.”  
“She’s going to want to drive her car. When I drove her Camaro back from Enid, she threatened my life if anything happened to it. I didn’t realize it at the time, but it was exactly the kind of thing you’d say. We should fill the tank, wash it.” Sam smiled at the memory. You so much as scratch a hubcap on this car, I swear on a stack of bibles you will die bloody, she’d said.  
“Detail it too. She loves that car like I love my car. That’ll mean something. Is there a radio in her room?”  
“I don’t think so, why?” Sam asked.  
“I got an idea.”

Dean couldn’t find a portable radio anywhere in the bunker. Sometimes he forgot this place hadn’t been inhabited since decades before he was born. He took the keys to Danielle’s Camaro from Sam, tucking the shopping list in to his pocket and headed to the garage. He looked at the Camaro in earnest for the first time. It was definitely the kind of car he would have chosen for himself, if he didn’t love his Impala so much. It was a deep green, no hint of rust on the wheel-wells, and meticulously maintained. The leather seat creaked a little as he eased himself in and started the ignition. He popped a random tape in and slowly rolled the car out of the garage on to the road, letting his mind conjure up images of Danielle in the driver’s seat, careening down the highway with the wind in her hair, windows down and the stereo cranked, and it made him smile.

When Dean returned a few hours later, the trunk was laden with purchases. He called Sam in to the garage to help him unload. Groceries went to the kitchen, girly bath stuff in to the shower room. Last, he unloaded a small portable stereo with a cassette deck in the front. They were surprisingly uncommon these days, but he’d managed to find one. He pulled the stereo out of the box and tucked the shoebox of cassettes from Danielle’s car under his arm, then eased the door of her room open. He plugged the stereo in and set it on a chair at the side of her bed, then shuffled through her cassettes for something appropriate. He found one labelled “Physical Graffiti” and popped it in, knowing that her love for Zeppelin must mirror his own, and the tape crackled to life in the opening bars of “In my Time of Dying.” Dean stood for a moment, watching the sleeping hunter, and a smile crept on to his face. She would wake up. She had to.


	7. What Comes After

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Somewhat of an epilogue.

Dean busied himself detailing the Camaro. It took the better part of a morning, washing the car, and waxing it, scrubbing the grime from the hubcaps. He vacuumed the interior, scrubbed the windows, and wiped the dust from the dash with the same tender care and attention he’d pay to Baby’s own interior. She took pretty damn good care of the car he noticed, and then remembered not to be surprised, because of course she did. Sam was making lunch when he walked back in to the bunker, and even though it was stupid rabbit food, he let himself be talked in to sitting down and sharing a meal with his brother.   
“Car’s done,” he told Sam, before taking a tentative bite of the chicken salad. At least there was meat in it. Spinach, too, but meat.   
“Cool.” Sam tried to maintain optimism, because that was really the whole point of this exercise, but Dean could see he was worried. They ate the rest of the meal quietly. Dean tried to make small talk but it felt forced, from both sides, so he gave up. He cleared their plates and then excused himself, taking stack of magazines and seating himself in Danielle’s room. The cassette tape had stopped sometime before he got there. Dean had tried to keep a steady stream of her tapes playing over the past day, since he set up the stereo, so that when she woke up, she’d be greeted with something familiar. It seemed right. He popped in another tape without checking the label. As the music started, Dean suppressed a laugh. It must be a mix tape. He couldn’t help singing along.

It was the heat of the moment…telling me what your heart meant…

He grooved a little, settling in to his chair and cracking flipping through the pages of some celebrity gossip rag. He imagined Danielle listening to this tape when she was alone, taking a break from the classic rock they both loved so much and indulging in something a little cheesier. The rest of the tape turned out to be 80’s pop. Dean would deny enjoying it until his dying day. He was bobbing his head to Frankie Goes to Hollywood’s “Relax” (which he totally didn’t know all the lyrics to, nope, no way), when a small voice interrupted his reverie.  
“Did you find it?” Dean jerked his head up, startled, and found himself racing to the bedside. Danielle smiled weakly.  
“Find what? How are you feeling? You doing ok?” Dean didn’t try to hid his joy at seeing her awake, finally.  
“Your punch card. I seem to recall you saying you were one apocalypse away from a free sandwich.” Danielle pushed herself up to a seated position, craning her neck and stretching out muscles tired from a week of disuse.  
“Yeah, well we did save the world. I think I’m owed at least a sandwich. Speaking of which, you must be starving.”  
“How long was I out?” she murmured  
“Almost a week. Cas tried to heal you but it didn’t work. We had to get kinda non traditional.” Dean laughed softly.  
“Non traditional?” She cocked an eyebrow.  
“Magic of intent, remember? Basically we just believed you’d wake up.”  
“Like some fucking Peter Pan, clap if you believe in fairies bullshit?” She laughed out loud, a lively sound, and then closed her eyes and ran a hand through her hair.  
“Yeah, I guess when you put it like that it sounds stupid, but you’re not dead so whatever. Come on, get up. You’ve had witch blood in your hair for six days. Go take a shower and Sam and I will make you something to eat.” He helped Danielle on to her feet, making sure she was steady enough to walk under he own power, and then headed off to find Sam.

Half an hour later, they sat around the big table, books pushed aside. Danielle’s wet hair was pulled back off her face, and she showed no outward signs of the near death experience she’d just pulled through. Dean had been right in assuming she’d want whiskey. It was nearly dinner time, after all, and Dean really did know her as well as he knew himself. She smiled at them in gratitude as she sipped coffee, then raised her glass of booze in a toast.  
“To not dying.” She intoned.  
“To not dying.” The Winchesters repeated.  
“I suppose that makes you a full member now. Stopped an apocalypse, basically died, somehow survived it. Couple that with daddy issues and poor coping mechanisms,” Dean shook his glass to signify he meant ‘drink until you can’t feel feelings anymore’, “and you’ve checked all the boxes. Welcome to the club.” Danielle laughed  
“Ooh exclusive. Do I get to learn the secret handshake now?”  
“Yeah about that. We mostly just punch things. It’s not really a big secret.” Sam smiled at her. “We’re really glad you pulled through.”  
“Yeah me too. Being dead was lame. I like this being alive and eating bacon thing much more.”  
“What are you going to do now? I mean, you’re welcome to stay here if you want, but you’re technically alive for the first time ever. You got plans?” Dean asked between mouthfuls of bacon.  
“Well I haven’t exactly had much time to think about it. But I need to try to go see Jake, I think. I remember him as clearly as anything, but I have no idea if he’s even out there. Maybe the magic made him real too, but maybe he never existed in the first place. I need to find out. I’ll take a couple of days to recoup, but then I’m gonna hit the road.

True to her word, Danielle hung around the bunker for two more days, settling back into the feeling of being alive. On the morning of the third day, she threw her bags in the back of the Camaro, practically beaming when she saw the level of care Dean had put in to washing it, and drew the two brothers into a tight embrace.  
“Thank you so much,” she muttered into Dean’s shoulder. “For everything. Really. I feel like I owe you…well really, I owe you my life.” Sam hugged her tighter.  
“Keep in touch, ok? You have our cell numbers. Call us if you need anything.” The taller Winchester commanded as he released her. She nodded.  
“Remember what I said, Dean. Next time we talk, I expect to hear that you’ve taken my advice. You get to be happy. Go do something about it.” Dean pretended not to know what she was talking about, but he blushed a little. The Camaro’s engine rumbled to life, and they waved enthusiastically as she drove out of the garage and out of their lives, hopefully not forever.  
“What was that about?” Sam asked, as Danielle drove out of sight.  
“Nothing man, just forget about it.” Dean replied, squashing any further inquiry, but internally, he wondered if, when Cas showed his face next, he’d see what Danielle saw. She’d been right about everything else she’d said about him. He allowed himself a little smile. This must be what having a little sister would have been like.

\--Fin--


End file.
